Fred Ruiz made millions off frozen Mexican food. Why he donated $15 million to UC Merced

In 1964 when he was helping to launch a frozen Mexican food company in Tulare, Fred Ruiz remembers his father, Louis, rummaging through scrap yards looking for anything that he could use in building the machines to make the product.

His father would look for gas burners, stoves and other equipment on the weekends at junkyards, said Ruiz.

“He was looking for something that could fit what he was building,” said Ruiz. “He was very resourceful.”

The fledgling company relied on recipes by Fred’s mother, Rosa Ruiz, for its products.

Six decades later, Ruiz and his wife Mitzie handed a $15 million donation to UC Merced.

What happened in between is an American saga of Latino entrepreneurs who built the country’s largest manufacturer of frozen Mexican food from scratch.

Sales this year, according to Ruiz when he spoke at a UC Merced commencement earlier this year, will reach $1 billion.

“I’ve been very fortunate to have made money, you know, with my businesses and with my other investments and whatnot,” said Ruiz during a telephone conversation on Monday. “But, from the beginning with Ruiz Foods, I learned that making a difference in people’s lives is probably about the best thing I could do.”

The donation, announced Oct. 22, is the largest made by a Central Valley resident to UC Merced, which opened in 2005 as the newest of the UC’s 10 campuses. The Mackenzie Scott Foundation made a $20 million donation earlier this year.

The 79-year-old entrepreneur — who retired as the Dinuba-based company’s CEO — said he wants “to leave this world feeling good about myself.”

The donation is designed to help not just the students and the university but the Central Valley, he said. The region, said Ruiz, is often overlooked, misunderstood or neglected by the rest of California.

He should know. Ruiz was a UC regent (2004-16) when doubts about UC Merced still existed.

“I learned a lot about people that just ignored the Valley because they just didn’t understand it,” he said. “They just thought it was a place for weeds to grow, and that it was hot.”

Agriculture, a multi-billion dollar economic engine in the Valley, was foreign to them, said Ruiz.

“They still don’t understand agriculture and farming and how important it is and what makes it work,” said Ruiz.

Ruiz was 9 years old when his father moved the family to Tulare from Los Ángeles.

“I think it was probably the best thing that could have happened to me or my community,” he said. “It helped mold me for the rest of my life.”

Growing up as the grandson of a Mexican who fled Chihuahua “in the middle of the night, leaving with his family in a car driving away from Pancho Villa and the federales” during the Mexican Revolution, Ruiz said he knows “immigrants come here to create a better life for their families.”

Ruiz sees the donation as an investment so that other Valley residents can achieve their American Dream.

“My American Dream was to take the opportunity to be a partner in a business with my dad,” said Ruiz.

UC Merced, he said, is poised to create a new wave of entrepreneurs who have a deep understanding of the region, agriculture, water, immigration and other issues that are unique to an area that generally lags behind the state in economic and educational attainment.

“I’m seeing young Latino students coming in and they want to go to UC Merced, not to work driving a tractor or picking fruit but to run a ranch,” said Ruiz. “A very sophisticated type of farming requires a higher understanding of the opportunities for saving water, for growing things, and the economics of it that were not really important in the days of their parents and grandparents.”

These students, Ruiz continued, can tell their parents how they’re making trees grow faster, longer or bigger. “They can talk to their parents, and their parents would understand,” he said.

Male and female Latinos are going into science or engineering. “Legal or illegal,” said Ruiz, “they’re going to stay here. They’re going to pursue the American dream for their families. I can understand why.”

UC Merced doubles its fundraising target

The Ruiz donation was announced at the Oct. 22 kick-off of Boldly Forward, UC Merced’s first comprehensive fundraising campaign. The goal of $100 million was doubled to $200 million.

UC Merced Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz called the donation “very generous.”

“To have a (supportive) family from the Valley is incredible,” said Sánchez Muñoz, “but then also a family that has thrived financially because of their business in the Valley is an extraordinary testament to the family and to the Valley, for the fertility of it for people and businesses.”

UC Merced will rename its administrative and career counseling building the Fred and Mitzie Ruiz Administration Center.

Sánchez Muñoz expects the signage to be completed in time for a dedication ceremony next spring.

“UC Merced would not be what it is today without the meaningful partnership of Fred and Mitzie Ruiz,” said Sánchez Muñoz. “Their generous commitment to name the Administration Center is just the latest in their long history of supporting and advancing the students and vital work of our university. Their dedication, leadership and advocacy are truly an inspiration.”