Marco and Lucille Minuto of Red Castle Bakeries , NYS SBDC Minority Entrepreneur of the Year

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Red Castle Bakeries was founded in 1996 by Marco and Lucille Minuto. The Minutos started this business after Marco was laid off from a 15 year sales and marketing career with a beef patty company located in NYC. The two decided to start their own manufacturing and distributing company delivering beef patties throughout the Long Island and NYC region.

They moved their growing business to their own building in Bayshore in 2007 and grew to employing 25 local residence. Shortly after the expansion, Mrs. Minuto was left a widow. She was faced with selling the business or to continue as the new President and running the operations with her sons.

She felt compelled to stay as so many employees and her own children were so vested in the business. She and her son Marco continued to operate and work hard to preserve what had been created.

Mrs. Minuto came to the Small Business Development Center in Farmingdale on November 14, just 15 days after Super Storm Sandy devastated so many businesses on Long Island. Her building had been damaged by wind and water damage by rain entering into the building. Compressors for refrigeration and freezer units were damaged and production came to a halt due to the loss of power for 2 weeks.

Lucille quickly knew the longer term recovery from this hurricane would be a hardship. Some of her clients were left without businesses leaving her future sales in jeopardy. The need to repair and rebuild needed to happen quickly. Her insurance company entered the claim but Lucille knew that payment would be slow and not cover all that she needed to do be whole again. Lucille submitted her application to the SBA with the assistance from Farmingdale SBDC. On Feb. 14 Lucille was approved for a 94,000.00 SBA disaster loan. She has contacted National Grid to see if she would be eligible to apply for the National Grid Disaster Grant Program. Lucille is looking to replace damaged equipment as well as rebuild the roof of the 46,500 square foot building.

Red Castle Bakeries was visited by Congressman Israel as well as Karen Mills, Administrator of U.S. Small Business Administration. Both were impressed by their visit to the factory and hearing the Minuto’s story.

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