Co-founder of Snapple

Hyman Golden, 85, a co-founder of Snapple Beverage Corp. who also served as its chairman during its boom days, died Sept. 14 in Great Neck, N.Y., of complications from a stroke, the New York Times reported.

Golden started the business with two partners in 1972, and several years later introduced a line of flavored teas and juices that became what the Times called “a national phenomenon.” By the time Golden and his partners sold the company to Quaker Oats Co. for $1.7 billion in 1994, it had annual sales of $700 million.

Golden was born in Passaic, N.J., in 1923 and grew up in Queens, N.Y. After serving in the Air Force, he founded a maintenance company with Leonard Marsh, his brother-in-law, and Marsh later introduced him to Arnold Greenberg, who ran a health food store in the East Village of Manhattan. The three founded a company called Unadulterated Food Products which, according to the Times, sold juices to health food stores.

The Snapple brand came to fruition in 1980 and the name came from a carbonated apple juice that had a “snappy apple taste.” Sales skyrocketed in the late 1980s when it introduced its iced tea, which was billed as having natural ingredients made from brewed tea.