For 158 years the Martinelli family has turned apples grown in Northern California orchards into a golden juice, and it's grown into a sweet family business.

The company had an estimated $175 million in 2025 revenue and has been increasing at 5% annually for the past five years. The business’s iconic champagne-style bottles of sparkling apple cider are today the top-seller in America and its apple-shaped juice jars are the second most sold apple juice in the country, after Mott’s. Martinelli’s products are now sold at 25,000 locations of every major retailer in America and in 38 countries.

“Even though we're not a giant company, we know and have great relationships with every single retailer out there, given how important that hero product of sparkling cider is,” says Martinelli’s 56-year-old CEO Gun Ruder. “It gives us a power with these retailers that's disproportionate to ourselves.”

While Ruder is the first non-family member to run the business, he is related to a branch on the family tree. He’s the brother-in-law of chairman and former three-decade-long president and CEO John Martinelli, the patriarch of the fourth generation, who dubbed Ruder “Generation 4.5.”

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Martinelli, 68, says the business is continuing “to grow with resilience and relevance” under Ruder in an “ever-changing” industry. “Our family name is prominently displayed on the label, and there is no way we would let others compromise our quality and family values.”

It’s rare for a business to have such high-quality and memorable packaging for both a everyday product (apple juice) and a celebratory product (sparkling cider), says Forward Consumer Partners founder Matt Leeds. The cider, Leeds says, “halos back beautifully. It lets them stay relevant and occasion-driven even when there’s a commoditized core market.”

“The brand is iconic. It is........

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