Stewart Allen Resnick (born December 24, 1936) is an American billionaire businessman. In 2018, Resnick was the wealthiest

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer m ...

in the United States. Resnick and his wife, Lynda Resnick, bought

The Franklin Mint The Franklin Mint is a private mint founded by Joseph Segel in 1964 in Wawa, Pennsylvania. The building is in Middletown Township. The brand name was previously owned by Sequential Brands Group headquartered in New York City, New York. It is ...

in 1986 and sold it in 2006. Since 1979 Resnick has been the chairman and president of

The Wonderful Company The Wonderful Company LLC, formerly known as Roll Global, is a private corporation based in Los Angeles, California. With revenues of over $4 billion, it functions as a holding company for Stewart and Lynda Resnick and as such is a vehicle for ...

. He is married to Lynda Resnick, and through their holding company they own the POM Wonderful and Fiji Water brands, Wonderful Pistachios and Almonds, Wonderful Halos, JUSTIN Wines, Landmark Wines, JNSQ Wines and the

Teleflora Teleflora is a floral wire service company which brokers orders to local florists for delivery.Teleflora Web ...

floral wire service company.

Early life and education

Resnick was born in 1936,BusinessWeek: "A Pistachio Farmer, Pom Wonderful, and the FTC" By Susan Berfield
November 11, 2010 and raised in a middle-class

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family in

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

and later moved to

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

with his family in the 1950s. His grandfather had immigrated from Ukraine when his father was 3. In 1959, he graduated with a BS from the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California S ...

and then a JD from the

UCLA School of Law The UCLA School of Law is one of 12 professional schools at the University of California, Los Angeles. UCLA Law has been consistently ranked by '' U.S. News & World Report'' as one of the top 20 law schools in the United States since the inception ...

.Bloomberg BusinessWeek: Company Overview of Roll Global LLC - Executive Profile Stewart A. Resnick
retrieved March 20, 2014
retrieved March 21, 2014 While in law school, he founded his first business, a janitorial services company, which he sold in 1969.

Career and companies

With the money he made from his first company, Resnick bought

, a subsidiary of Roll International Corporation, in 1986. Franklin Mint is known for making model cars, souvenir plates, figurines, and Civil War-inspired chess sets. Resnick served as CEO and chairman of the Franklin Mint Company until its sale in 2006. Since 1979 Resnick has served as President and chairman of

, formerly known as Roll Global, which owns many businesses in Central California and beyond. Through this holding company he and his wife own the POM Wonderful and Fiji Water brands, Wonderful Halos, Wonderful Pistachios and Almonds, JUSTIN Wines, Landmark Wines, JNSQ Wines, Suterra Pest Control and the

Teleflora Teleflora is a floral wire service company which brokers orders to local florists for delivery.Teleflora Web ...

floral wire service company. Resnick sat on the board of directors of

LeapFrog Enterprises LeapFrog Enterprises, Inc. (commonly known as LeapFrog) is an educational entertainment and electronics company based in Emeryville, California. LeapFrog designs, develops, and markets technology-based learning products and related content for ...

from 2002 to 2005.

The Franklin Mint

The Resnicks purchased The Franklin Mint in 1986 and expanded the company's collectibles business through new licensing agreements. These including the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

art museum in Paris, the

Vatican Vatican may refer to: Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum The Holy See * The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...

, board games like

Monopoly A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...

and

Scrabble ''Scrabble'' is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left t ...

, classic cars, and famous people like John Wayne,

Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...

, and

Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe (; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; 1 June 1926 4 August 1962) was an American actress. Famous for playing comedic " blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as wel ...

. The Resnicks sold The Franklin Mint in 2006.

POM Wonderful

In 2002 the Resnicks founded Pom Wonderful. The company's main product is pomegranate juice, which is sold in a trademark "double-bulb" bottle with the product name, POM, featured in capital letters where the O is substituted by a heart symbol. The company also manufactures blended juice beverages, such as pomegranate juice mixed with juices of blueberry, cranberry, cherry, mango or tangerine, and bottled tea- and coffee-based beverages of various flavors distributed in more conventional containers. In addition to drinks, the company sells pills and concentrated liquid products marketed as nutritional supplements. In 2017, POM Wonderful acquired the pomegranate distributor Ruby Fresh.

Fiji Water

The Resnicks acquired the Fiji Water business in 2004, increasing sales of Fiji Water by 300% in 4 years, making it the largest imported bottled water brand in the US. It comes from the aquifer on the island of

Viti Levu Viti Levu (pronounced ) is the largest island in the Republic of Fiji. It is the site of the nation's capital, Suva, and home to a large majority of Fiji's population. Geology Fiji lies in a tectonically complex area between the Australian ...

, and can be found in luxury hotels, leading restaurants and airports around the world. Through the Fiji Water Foundation the company provides clean water access to rural communities, builds educational facilities and infrastructure that benefit communities and provides access to health care services.

Wonderful Halos

In 2013 the Resnicks launched Wonderful Halos mandarins, with a $220 million facility in the San Joaquin Valley capable of processing 19 million mandarins a day. By 2017 Halos was the #1 segment brand, forecast to have around 70-80% market share by 2018. In 2017, Halos accounted for around three-quarters of growth in the mandarin category, and 12% of total produce sales growth.

Wonderful Pistachios and Almonds

Wonderful Pistachios & Almonds is the world's largest vertically integrated pistachio and almond grower and processor, cultivating and harvesting more than 65,000 acres of pistachio and almond orchards and delivering more than 450 million pounds of nuts globally each year. Known for its ''Get Crackin campaign, Wonderful Pistachios was the US's fastest-growing snack brand and the number 1 tree nut brand in 2018.

JUSTIN Wines

In 2010 the Resnicks purchased Justin Vineyards and Winery, a 50,000 case-production winery in California's Central Coast region founded in 1981. JUSTIN Wines specializes in Bordeaux style varieties, such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc, and was named the 2015 American Winery of the Year by Wine Enthusiast Magazine.

Philanthropy

Resnick is a Trustee Emeritus of the J. Paul Getty Trust and is on the Board of Visitors of the

UCLA Anderson School of Management The John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management, also known as the UCLA Anderson School of Management, is the graduate business school at the University of California, Los Angeles, one of eleven professional schools. The school offers MBA (ful ...

. He sits on the board of trustees of

Bard College Bard College is a private liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains, and is within the Hudson River Historic District—a National Historic Landmark. Founded in 1860, ...

and Conservation International. He also serves on the Board of Advisers at UC Davis, the Lowell Milken Institute for Business Law & Policy at UCLA, and is a

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

Senior Trustee. In 2005 the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital was named for Resnick and his wife in honor of their involvement. They made a $4 million donation to Children's Hospital Central California in 2006. At

's 2009 graduation ceremonies, Caltech announced that the Resnicks had donated $20 million towards a "sustainability center" to be named after themselves. In September 2008, Resnick and his wife announced a $45 million gift to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for the construction of a new exhibition pavilion, as well as $10 million in artworks. In 2018, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles announced the couple's $30 million gift to help pay for a renovation and expansion project. In September 2019, Resnick and his wife pledged their largest donation to date, a $750 million endowment to Caltech for climate research.

Personal life

He is divorced from his first wife, Sandra Frazier. Since 1973, he has been married to Lynda Rae Harris. He has three children from his first marriage: Jeff Resnick, Ilene Resnick, and Bill Resnick; and two stepchildren from his marriage to Harris: Jason Sinay and Jonathan Sinay. They reside in Beverly Hills, California.

Criticism

Growing water-intensive nut tree crops in the Central Valley—a single almond requires of water—has drawn criticism during California's ongoing drought. According to Forbes Magazine Wonderful Company uses "at least 120 billion gallons 50 million m³a year, two-thirds on nuts, enough to supply San Francisco's 852,000 residents for a decade." In addition the Resnicks own a majority stake in the Kern Water Bank, "one of California's largest underground water storage facilities. It is capable of storing 500 billion gallons .9 billion m³of water. The acquisition, continuing private ownership, and water sales profit from this taxpayer-developed resource infrastructure while California suffers under drought is controversial. In an effort to make their impact on the region more positive, the Resnicks have invested in the growth of the local economy and nutrition centers. As the New York Times notes, "in Lost Hills there are new health centers, new pre-K facilities, new housing projects, new gardens, new sidewalks and lights, a new community center and a new soccer field." They have partnered with the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project to bring water to Kern County spending $35 million in recent years buying up more water from nearby districts to replenish the Central Valley's supplies. At the same time as exporting almonds to Asia and other locations, they import Fiji bottled water from the South Pacific. Some foreign conservationists criticize the Resnicks for "hogging the archipelago's precious water supply... while island natives didn't always have water to drink themselves, due to crumbling and insufficient infrastructure." However, local officials support the investment Fiji water makes in the economy as "a critical contributor to the Fijian Economy... and a gift to the Fijian tourism industry." In addition, their claims for the "POM" pomegranate drink have been contested. ''Forbes'' reported, "The Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint in 2010 that the Resnicks' POM Wonderful had used deceptive advertising when marketing the antioxidant-rich drink as being able to treat, prevent or reduce the risk of heart disease, prostate cancer and erectile dysfunction. In 2012 a federal judge agreed that some of the ads were misleading. In 2013 FTC commissioners denied the Resnicks' appeal. In October of 2015, the Resnicks asked the Supreme Court to take the case."Forbes Magazine: America's Nuttiest Billionaire Couple: Amid Drought, Stewart And Lynda Resnick Are Richer Than Ever
November 23, 2015 In May 2016 the Supreme Court declined. In 2015 it was revealed that the Resnicks and other farmers had been watering their orchards with treated

fracking Fracking (also known as hydraulic fracturing, hydrofracturing, or hydrofracking) is a well stimulation technique involving the fracturing of bedrock formations by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the high-pressure injection of "frac ...

waste water. A water recycling program in California allows oil companies to sell wastewater to landowners, including farmers like the Wonderful Company.Cart, J. (2015) Central Valley’s growing concern: Crops raised with oil field water. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-drought-oil-water-20150503-story.html#page=1 on 10/14/2019

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Resnick, Stewart American business executives American company founders Businesspeople from Los Angeles The Wonderful Company 1938 births Living people American billionaires Philanthropists from California Jewish American philanthropists People associated with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art People from Beverly Hills, California People from New Jersey Bard College University of California, Los Angeles alumni UCLA School of Law alumni 20th-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesspeople American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent 21st-century American Jews