In October of 2015, the Resnicks asked the Supreme Court to take the case. We met at the 14-acre, Resnick-funded Wonderful Park, where they introduced me to Claudia Nolguen, a Wonderful employee and Lost Hills native who coordinates a daily itinerary of free activities for residents. Being invited to a dinner party by Lynda Resnick is like being nominated for an Oscar, only more impressive, local publicist Michael Levine told the Los Angeles Business Journal. In 2012 a federal judge agreed that some of the ads were misleading. Urgent, for sure. Theyve been described as the biggest water users in Los Angeles and the biggest farmers in the country, although theyre not farmers in the sense of men and women who personally drive tractors or get down on their knees to harvest crops. Since 1973, he has been married to Lynda Rae Harris. Oh no, you talk great, the woman replied with a warm smile, before she began handing out copies of her book, Rubies in the Orchard: How to Uncover the Hidden Gems in Your Business. The Resnicks acquired the Fiji Water business in 2004,[25] after which Lynda supervised marketing that focused on promoting the uniqueness and exotic nature of the water. At issue, of course, is money as much as $50 million, based on the Assemis estimate of their pistachio crops value. "[58] 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. Resnick is married to Stewart Resnick, who is her business partner, and through their holding company The Wonderful 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 floral wire service company. The steady work allowed her kids to graduate from high school and move into the middle class. Offutt family (190,000 acres) In 2016, the . Monika Bauerlein, CEO, and Brian Hiatt, Online Membership Director. Last year, the Resnicks rebranded all their holdings as the Wonderful Company to highlight their focus on healthy products and philanthropy. They have multiple businesses in all domains, although farming is one of their largest. Stewart and Lynda Resnick are agribusiness billionaires. [21] They made a $4 million donation to Children's Hospital Central California in 2006. In the heart of the nut boom is Lost Hills, an entirely flat town where more than half the households have at least one adult who works for the Wonderful Company. Oct. 17, 2022 1:11 PM PT UC Davis is set to build a center focused on agricultural innovation and research after Beverly Hills billionaires Lynda and Stewart Resnick gave the university $50. We drove to the Wonderful pistachio factory for lunch. PDF The Stewart and Lynda Resnick Revocable Trust's and Resnick Family Beverly Hills billionaire Stewart Resnick and his wife, Lynda, the co-owners of The Wonderful Company, are the Power Couple of Corporate Agribusiness in California, who have become virtual royalty in 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. They were expecting a smaller-than-normal crowd. Its unclear what eventually happened with the crop. Around that time, Lynda started dating Anthony Russo, who worked at a think tank with military analyst Daniel Ellsberg. by Robert Evans and Avrum Lapin, Bloomberg BusinessWeek: Company Overview of Roll Global LLC - Executive Profile Stewart A. Resnick, The Getty Trust: "Board of Trustees - Stewart A. Resnick", "UCLA Anderson Alumni Bulletin: "Stewart Resnick - Inspirational 100 Alumnus", "Pomegranate Juice Uncorked in Major Marketing Success", "starbulletin.com | Business | /2006/10/18/", "Hitting the Shelves: A Twist on Energy Drinks -- February 2009", "Published research on POMx shows similar health benefits to pomegranate juice", "Roll International Corporation Acquires FIJI Water LLC", "How The 'Wonderful Company' Is The 'Amazing Company' For Fiji | Fiji Sun", "U.S.: Wonderful Company sees sky-high growth as strategy pays off", "Wonderful Pistachios - Healthy Snackin - Get Crackin", "What the Fastest-Growing CPG Companies Do Differently", "JUSTIN Vineyards & Winery Named American Winery of the Year by Wine Enthusiast Magazine", "Who We Are Lowell Milken Institute for Business Law and Policy", "Paramount Farms Donates $4 Million to Children's Hospital Central California - The Central Valley Deals", "Los Angeles Business Journal Online - business news and information for Los Angeles California", "Lynda and Stewart Resnick Donate $55 Million to LACMA", "Hammer Museum receives $50 million in gifts for expansion", "Resnick explains $750-million gift to Caltech for climate research. A similar return-on-investment logic infuses the companys educational initiatives. Because over the challenging last year, and thanks to feedback from readers, we've started to see a better way to go about asking you to support our work: Level-headedly communicating the urgency of hitting our fundraising goals, being transparent about our finances, challenges, and opportunities, and explaining how being funded primarily by donations big and small, from ordinary (and extraordinary!) "Country's Wealthiest Farmer Stewart Resnick Makes 'A Kingdom From Dust' During Drought", "Collectibles Firm Franklin Mint Sold to Investor Group", BusinessWeek: "A Pistachio Farmer, Pom Wonderful, and the FTC" By Susan Berfield, Jewish Philanthropy: "The Top Jewish Donors and Jewish Giving: Why the Disconnect?" Stewart and Lynda Resnick have hobnobbed with such Southern California fixtures as Barbra Streisand, and they're prominent among local philanthropists, with their name on a sizable chunk of the. Thankfully. In June 2015, Rep. David Valadao, a Republican from the Valley, introduced a bill that would force federal regulators to release more Delta water for agriculture. My hope is that this really doesnt become a charity, but rather works, and that we will get a paybackboth in terms of productivity and reduced health care costs. Delta water has transformed the arid Southland into the states population center and the nations produce aisle. When she retold the story onstage at the 2013 Aspen Ideas Festival, Resnick stopped short of spelling out exactly what she thought her husband was alluding to. That brings us back to the lawsuit, which has its genesis in the Assemis decision to break away from the Wonderful pistachio growers cooperative and build their own pistachio processing plant. POM positioned its product as almost a magic elixir health in a bottle and even put up billboards with the words Cheat Death next to a picture of the bottle. The Wonderful Company, Co-Owned By One Of America's Richest - Forbes So like other farmers, the Resnicks have turned to the states dwindling reserve of groundwater, sinking wells hundreds of feet deep on their land. In the 1970s, Stewart Resnick purchased 2,500 acres of oranges and lemons in California, kickstarting their entrance into agriculture. Nobody cared. Stewart and Lynda Resnick: Donor Grants | Inside Philanthropy We are deeply committed to doing our part to build a better world and inspiring others to do the same., But skeptics note that the Resnicks donations to Lost Hills began a few months after Earth Island Journal documented the yawning wealth gap between the couple and their company town, a dusty assemblage of trailer homes, dirt roads, and crumbling infrastructure. The Resnicks purchased Teleflora in 1979,[7] at which time Lynda left her advertising job to become the company's executive vice president of marketing and eventually president. The lawsuit says that the health of the crop is threatened by Wonderfuls delaying tactics: Wonderful knows that time is of the essence because the crop must be harvested now each day of delay raises the prospect of a condition known as shell staining, which reduces the crops value. Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox. She is behind the marketing success of some of the most iconic and top-selling brands in America including Wonderful Pistachios, POM Wonderful, FIJI Water and Wonderful Halos. [2] Resnick and his wife, Lynda Resnick, bought The Franklin Mint in 1986 and sold it in 2006. She was struggling to keep things afloat. Copyright 2023 Mother Jones and the Foundation for National Progress. In 1993, the US Fish and Wildlife Service listed the smelt as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, setting the stage for pumping limits. [40], She is on the board of trustees and chair of the marketing and communications committee at the Aspen Institute. She had just been confronted while watering her lawn in Santa Monica by one of the amateur videographers behind last summers hottest new California film genre: the drought-shaming video. Wonderful said Monday that it has spent $5 million to remediate the property, including stabilizing the site to prevent erosion and planting 400 trees and 3,500 acorns on site.. We noticed you have an ad blocker on. Lynda A. Flowers 1957-2023 | News, Sports, Jobs - The Vindicator Her father, Jack H. Harris, worked as a film distributor during the 1950s; he is known for producing The Blob, which later became a cult favorite. (The Resnicks have given more than $18,000 to Valadaos campaigns since 2011.) The largest local recipient of donations under the program is Wasco Union High School, which during the past twelve years has received more than $210,000 thanks to Wonderful Giving. They control Fiji Water, Justin Vineyards and the florist delivery service Teleflora, among other enterprises. [39], She is on the executive board of UCLA Medical Sciences, the Prostate Cancer Foundation and the Milken Family Foundation. 'The kids are concerned', "Lynda and Stewart Resnick Pledge $50M to UC Davis for Sustainability Research", "Forbes profile: Stewart and Lynda Resnick", "It takes how much water to grow an almond?! To expand their agricultural empire, they had to find another way to tap into the flow from north to south. Lynda Resnick - Forbes They live in Beverly Hills and have a home in Aspen, Colorado. [23] In 2017, Halos accounted for around three-quarters of growth in the mandarin category, and 12% of total produce sales growth. The Wonderful Co. Half of American households now purchase Wonderful Co. products. Though California passed its first-ever groundwater regulations in 2014, water districts wont be required to limit pumping for at least another four years. The Iranian immigrant family is known there as major home builders, downtown redevelopers, philanthropists and entrepreneurs, as well as growers. Lynda Resnick. By 2000 there was research published with findings regarding effects of regular pomegranate consumption. The nut industrys nearly year-round employment has allowed farmworkers to put down roots. Black Americans will spend $800 billion more on consumer products in 2030 than they did almost decade before, according to McKinsey. And it changed my life that very day, she said. Stewart, who was first elected in 2012, reportedly plans to resign as his wife struggles with an undisclosed health issue. [30] By 2017 Halos was the #1 segment brand, forecast to have around 70-80% market share by 2018. [4] After a brief stint at a local college, Resnick took a job at the in-house ad agency for Sunset House catalog. [7] In 1959, he graduated with a BS from the University of California, Los Angeles and then a JD from the UCLA School of Law. And now that people have to cut back on their water, all of a sudden it has become important.. [31] Company executives credit Resnick with the choice to retain Roll Global's mandarin operations in 2013 despite strong competition from existing brands, and as the key architect of Halos branding. It was only later that Tijerina realized the woman owned the almond groves where Tijerinas husband worked as a pruner. [8] Franklin Mint is known for making model cars, souvenir plates, figurines, and Civil War-inspired chess sets. [14] January 2009 saw her company's first Super Bowl advertisement, which was voted one of the best Super Bowl ads by several newspapers, blogs, and online fan sites. Theyve given six-figure sums to every California governor since Republican Pete Wilson. They control more of it in some years than whats used by the residents of Los Angeles and the entire San Francisco Bay Area combined. "[52] In May 2016 the Supreme Court declined. In conversation, she reminded me of my own charming and crafty Jewish grandmother, a woman adept at calling bluffs at the poker table while bluffing you back. The Couple Who Turned a California Desert Into a Multi - Longreads Not so fast. [19] It comes from the aquifer on the island of Viti Levu, and can be found in luxury hotels, leading restaurants and airports around the world. Pistachio Billionaires' Foundation Lends Millions to Business But inside the marketing and product division that Resnick, 75, heads up, five former employees . The issue has become more inclusive when selecting models. But it's not all doom and gloom! Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation. The estate employs at least seven full-time attendants. Lynda and Stewart Resnick have donated an additional $2.375 million to UCLA School of Law to strengthen the research and educational resources of the Resnick Center for Food Law and Policy. ", "America's Nuttiest Billionaire Couple: Amid Drought, Stewart And Lynda Resnick Are Richer Than Ever", "How a Beverly Hills couple came to control a water empire", "The Wonderful Company gives Community Food Bank its biggest donation ever", Forbes Magazine: America's Nuttiest Billionaire Couple: Amid Drought, Stewart And Lynda Resnick Are Richer Than Ever, "LA Times: Pom Wonderful case not wonderful enough, Supreme Court says", "These popular fruit and veggie brands may be grown with oil wastewater", "Central Valley's growing concern: Crops raised with oil field water", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stewart_Resnick&oldid=1165930561, People associated with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, University of California, Los Angeles alumni, American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent, Articles with dead external links from October 2010, Wikipedia articles needing factual verification from September 2019, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using infobox person with multiple spouses, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0, 5: 3 with Frazier, and 2 stepchildren with Harris, This page was last edited on 18 July 2023, at 09:21. In the Matter of POM Wonderful LLC and Roll Global LLC, as successor in interest to Roll International Corporation, companies, and Stewart A. Resnick, Lynda Rae Resnick, and Matthew Tupper, individually and as officers of the companies FTC Matter/File Number 082 3122 Docket Number 9344 Related Cases POM Wonderful LLC, et al. Through their companies and the Resnick Family Foundation, these visionaries are committed to preserving and protecting the environment, supporting essential education programs, and improving the communities where their employees live and work. [22], 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. According to Resnick's book, sales of Fiji Water soon increased by 300%[7] by 2008, becoming the largest imported bottled water brand in the United States. Kevin Assemi demanded by email that Wonderful commit to paying the full bonus for 2019, and gave Wonderful until Sept. 4 to reply. [2] Resnick and his wife, Lynda Resnick, bought The Franklin Mint in 1986 and sold it in 2006. The companys new, far-reaching health initiative also includes free exercise classes in the employee gym, a weekly on-site farmers market, and a program that pays people up to $2,700 a year to lose weight and keep it off. 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 floral wire service company. It wasnt the first time Resnick had pitched her products as health panaceas. 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. Yet thats hard to square against the Resnicks approach to state politics. Terms of Service apply. Lynda Resnick accepts 2014 Corporate Leadership Award, Introduced by Born: c. 1944 Birthplace: Baltimore . After the Resnicks family physician mentioned the fruits key role in Mediterranean folk medicine, Lynda commissioned scientific studies and found that pomegranate juice had more antioxidant properties than red wine. Then they gave $221,000 to his replacement, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has called them some of my dearest, dearest friends. The $150,000 theyve sprinkled on Jerry Brown since 2010 might not seem like a lot by comparison, but no other individual donor has given more. Three weeks after the ad went live, Gov. Its unclear how much money is actually at stake. But if I had to do it again, I would.. On the other side, the Assemis are no slouches when it comes to political heft, though their influence is more limited, focusing around Fresno. They can live with their families, send their kids to school, and start to grasp for the American Dream. 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. A rare peek inside their agricultural empire shows how Stewart and Lynda Resnick are going all in on the innovative citrus fruit. PDF Lynda and Stewart Resnick - Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Assemis 14 pistachio farms are either members of the cooperative or have independently contracted to deliver their crops to Wonderful 30 million pounds in 2018. In 2005 the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital was named for Resnick and her husband in honor of their involvement. Pomegranate Princess. About Us - Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital | UCLA Health The clinics have a full-time, bilingual doctor, health coaches, and prescription medicationsall free of charge. At first, it was classic civic gifts: $15 million to found UCLAs Stewart and Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital; $35 million to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for an exhibition space designed by Renzo Piano and dubbed the Resnick Pavilion; $20 million for the Resnick Sustainability Institute at Caltech, which focuses on making the breakthroughs that will change the balance of the worlds sustainability. (Wonderful claims to have developed an almond tree that has 30 percent higher yields than a conventional tree, using the same amount of water. In the works for 20 years, Arax's phenomenal story, "A Kingdom From Dust," profiles Stewart and Lynda Resnick, billionaires who grow almonds, pistachios, citrus and pomegranates on desert land they have never tilled or irrigated themselves, land that taxpayers and state and federal water have helped them turn into a dangerous and lucrative agric. Lynda Resnick - Wikipedia 150 UCLA Medical Plaza Los Angeles, California 90095 (310) 825-9111 Hospital information (310) 825-2111 Emergency Dept . This year 81-year old Martha Stewart is one of four models on the cover of Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. It is capable of storing 500 billion gallons [1.9billionm3] of water. Their first big purchase as a couple, in 1979, was Teleflora, a flower delivery company that Lynda revitalized by pioneering the flowers in a gift conceptblooms wilt, but the cut-glass vase and teddy bear live on. Back when cotton was still king in Kern County, migrant workers whod picked spring oranges and summer grapes in other parts of the Valley would descend on Lost Hills for a few weeks to work alongside cotton combines during the fall harvest. They made a $4 million donation to Children's Hospital Central California in 2006. It's Not a Crisis. Baskets on the tables were filled with free fruits and nuts for the taking. One education program they built and partially funded, which was awarded an $8.5 million grant from the state in June 2015 to help them expand it, gives 200 students a year partial agricultural education and college scholarships to gain technical experience. Stewart and Lynda Resnicks Wonderful Co. is among a handful of honey bee farms responsible for the pollination of a third of Americans food. [51], In 2016 the US Chamber of Commerce recognized Resnick and The Wonderful Company with their Corporate Citizenship Award for their work in community improvement.[52]. [44], In September 2019, Lynda Resnick and her husband pledged $750 million to the California Institute of Technology for environmental sustainability research. Brown held a press conference in which he rebranded his plan as the California Water Fix. Stewart & Lynda Resnick - Forbes Its not unusual for a field hand to spend 40 percent of his $1,800 monthly wage on a one-bedroom apartment. Having shrewdly maneuvered the backroom politics of Californias byzantine water rules, they are now thought to consume more of the states water than any other family, farm, or company. [49] In 2006 Resnick introduced the Wonderful Giving Program, allowing employees to direct donations to local charities. The Wonderful Company, the corporate arm of Beverly Hills billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick, promotes itself incessantly as an exemplar of social responsibility and a guardian of sustainable agriculture. She even helped, scissoring the Top Secret stamps off documents to declassify them. Lynda and Stewart Resnick's House - Virtual Globetrotting Resnick also opened up preschools that now help feed the Wonderful College Prep Academy, which has 2,400 K-12 students, two free public charter schools founded . If you call yourself the Wonderful Company, Lynda Resnick told me, youd better damn well be wonderful, right?, Sunset House, the Resnicks 25,000-square-foot Beaux Arts mansion, is imposing even by Beverly Hills standards. Resnick's second marriage is to Stewart Resnick, who is also her business partner. The population has doubled since 1990, and the influx of so many new families has meant rising costs. Stewart and Lynda Resnick Give $750 Million to Caltech, Largest The Wonderful Company. To meet robust demand from Europe and Asia, Stewart Resnick last year announced that he wanted to expand nut acreage another 40 percent by 2020. I think it was unfair, Resnick told me. [21][22][23] Resnick designed the POM Wonderful logo, and her design team developed an hourglass-shape bottle,[24] the company later expanding into other liquid products and pills. Before we get into the details of the lawsuit, lets take a look at the players.