The Billionaire Families Behind Your Favorite Brands

The Billionaire Families Behind Your Favorite Brands

The third richest family on the Forbes list of billionaire families has it sweet. Frank C. Mars started the Marscandy company from his kitchen in Tacoma Washington in 1911. Today members of the third generation of the Mars family are heirs to one of the largest candy companies in the world, reaping the benefits of an array of brands — including M&M, Snickers, Dove, Galaxy, Trix — that began with the success of the malted-nougat Milky Way bar that was launched in the early 1920s.

The Mars family is just one among the nearly 40 families who got rich off powerful consumer product brands in 2014; others include Estee Lauder, Goya, Jack Daniel’s, Orkin, Anheuser-Busch, Coors, Levi’s, Gap, L.L. Bean, Land’s End, Russell Stover, Ring Dings and Carnation Milk and Perdue Chicken.

A third of the companies that nurture these brands are over a century old. E.I. du Pont, the son of a French watch maker, fled to America during the French Revolution and started a gun powder manufacturing business which evolved into a chemical manufacturing behemoth with patents for their pioneering products like nylon, Lycra, Teflon and Kevlar. John T. Dorrance invented the formula for condensed soup in 1897 and Campbell Soup remains among the top ten shelf-stable products sold at grocery stores throughout the country.

In comparison, Perdue Chicken and Goya are relatively new brands.  In 1970, Frank Perdue took an everyday product, transformed it into a brand through a national advertising campaign, and succeeded in creating a multi-billion dollar poultry processing business. Goya, the Hispanic food product company started by the Unanue family in a storefront in downtown Manhattan in 1936, has become a leader in the Latin American food industry.

Some families have cashed out and sold their brands. In 2008, the Busch family gave up 156 years of ownership of Budweiser, selling out to Brazilian investors for just over $50 billion. But their namesake brands continue to live on.

Interestingly, one family owned brand inspired another family business and both made the billionaire families list this year. Levi Strauss invented the concept of blue jeans made with metal rivets in 1873. A century later, it was at least in part, the inspiration for a new clothing company called the Gap. Started by Don and Doris Fisher in 1969, Gap was a Levi’s-only chain before the Fishers launched their own brand name collection in 1972 and set a trend with its private label approach to retailing.

Here are the names of some families that appear on the Forbes list of billionaire families who have amassed their fortunes by creating the brands you love:

Net Worth  ($ bb)	Family Name	Brand
60.0	Mars	Mars, M&M, Twix, Skittles, Dove, Pedigree (pet food), Orbit
25.5	Johnson  S.C.	Pledge, Windex
15.5	Lauder	Estee Lauder
15.0	Du Pont	Teflon, Kevlar, Nylon
13.0	Busch	Anheuser Busch
12.8	Dorrance	Campbell Soup
11.6	Brown	Jack Daniel’s, Southern Comfort, Finlandia
10.2	Fisher	Gap
9.7	Gallo	New Amsterdam Vodka
7.8	Rollins	Orkin
6.9	Shoen	U-Haul
6.8	Hughes	Public Storage
6.1	Johnson	Band Aid, Listerine, Tylenol
5.9	Mariott	Marriott, Ritz Carlton
5.6	Barbey	Lee, Wrangle, North Face
5.4	Gore	Goretex
5.3	Jenkins	Publix
5.2	Getty	Getty gas stations
4.7	Nordstrom	Nordstrom
3.5	Gund	Sanka Coffee
2.9	Coors	Molson
2.6	Hall	Hallmark
2.6	Hewlett	H.P.
2.1	Boyle	Columbia Sportswear
2.0	Ford	Ford Cars
2.0	Perdue	Perdue Chicken
1.9	Levine	Family Dollar
1.8	Dean	L.L. Bean
1.8	Ward	Russell Stover
1.6	Haas	Levis
1.5	Merage	Hot Pockets
1.4	McKee	Ring Dings, Devil Dogs
1.1	Unanue	Goya
1.0	Comer	Land’s End
1.0	Stuart	Carnation