IRVINE, CALIF. (June 16, 2025) – Western Growers will present The Wonderful Company Chairman, President and Co-Owner Stewart Resnick with the 2025 Award of Honor at the organization’s 99th Annual Meeting in November. The Award of Honor is Western Growers’ highest recognition of achievement and is given annually to individuals who have contributed extensively to the agricultural community.
With more than $6 billion in annual revenue and a portfolio of leading consumer brands and businesses – including Wonderful Pistachios, POM Wonderful, Wonderful Halos, JUSTIN Vineyards & Winery, and FIJI Water – Wonderful products are found in nearly half of U.S. households.
Resnick held his first job and started his first business at age 13 and later helped pay for his UCLA education by launching a janitorial service. Over more than 50 years, he and his wife, Lynda, have gone on to build, acquire and transform a series of companies, making smaller businesses into household names and turning commodities into global brands.
What began as a hedge against inflation – the purchase of a citrus orchard in the late 1970s – grew to become the center of Resnick’s professional life. Under his leadership and co-ownership with Lynda, The Wonderful Company is the world’s largest grower of tree nuts and the country’s leading citrus producer. Wonderful Pistachios sells and markets 60 percent of all pistachios grown in the United States. Today, the company employs more than 10,000 people around the world, including more than 3,000 in California’s Central Valley, and operates one of America’s largest state-of-the-art logistics centers in Shafter, Calif. – a cleaner, more sustainable hub for commerce that already employs more than 10,000 people is projected to support 50,000 new jobs over the coming decades.
“Though his path to becoming a farmer was unconventional, Stewart Resnick embodies all the admirable qualities we celebrate in agriculture: Laser focus and a determination to beat the odds, resilience and adaptability, business acumen and daring, a willingness to publicly fight the hard fights for the industry, a commitment to do right by his customers and employees, and generosity in giving back to rural communities,” said Western Growers President and CEO Dave Puglia. “As Chairman, President and Co-Owner of The Wonderful Company, Stewart and his wife Lynda have together shown how agriculture can flourish and prosper, and thanks to their generosity they have built a vision of California that is both robust and kind. We are very proud to honor Stewart with Western Growers’ highest accolade, the Award of Honor, this November at our Annual Meeting in Coronado.”
“Stewart Resnick is an exceptional recipient of the Award of Honor,” said Western Growers Board Chair Stuart Woolf, President & CEO of Woolf Farming and Processing. “As a market leader, he not only elevates his own businesses and brands but also those of his fellow growers and competitors. He exemplifies the best of agriculture through his stewardship of land, people, and community. We are so lucky to have such an accomplished farmer/philanthropist in our ranks.”
“I’m deeply honored to receive this recognition from Western Growers—an award that’s gone to so many agriculture leaders I’ve long admired,” said Stewart Resnick, chairman, president and co-owner of The Wonderful Company. “For nearly five decades, agriculture has been the heart and soul of my professional life. It’s been incredibly special to be part of California’s farming community as we do the essential work of feeding a growing world.”
Under the Resnicks’ leadership, Wonderful is widely recognized for its workplace culture. Wonderful has been named one of Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For® in the United States multiple years in a row and is ranked No. 3 in the nation on PEOPLE Magazine’s Companies That Care list. The Resnicks also are significant global philanthropists, directing more than $2.5 billion toward education, health care, sustainability, infrastructure, community development, and other initiatives, with a strong focus on California’s Central Valley, where so many Wonderful employees live and work. Resnick serves on the boards of UC Davis and Caltech, where, through one of the largest gifts to a university in U.S. history, the Resnick Sustainability Institute at Caltech promotes global research in sustainable science and engineering.
Stewart Resnick’s achievements will be celebrated at the Award of Honor Dinner Gala at the 2025 Western Growers Annual Meeting in Coronado, Calif. on Nov. 9-12, 2025.