The viral TikTok trend helped Martinelli's apple juice return to consumers' minds after the slow years of back-to-back. 

"It's true, it sounds like an apple!" a teenager said in front of the camera with a grin. In the next scene, she was in the kitchen with her elbows on the table, and she took a bite of the apple juice bottle. It made her teeth squeak crisply, and after a short pause, she tried again, this time glancing approvingly at the camera. 

Martinelli first launched a plastic version of its iconic glass apple-shaped bottle 15 years ago, but no one can predict that by 2020, when people start to bite it, it will become an overnight sensation. 

For this 153-year-old cider and juice company, John Martinelli, chairman of S. Martinelli & Company, never dreamed of this kind of publicity, but when celebrities such as Lizzo caught it Trends and want to see if chewing it really produces a distinct apple crispness, Martinelli seems to be in the mind of everyone who wants to debunk the myth for himself. The TikTok crowd posed one after another to shoot the video. They took a sip of Martinelli's apple juice, reclosed the lid, and then bit into the thick plastic. 

"We were told that about 500 million people watched the video or contributed their own video," Martinelli said. "We sold it for several years until none of this happened. It was kind of interesting because that was the first time I understood what an influential person is."

John Martinelli, Chairman of the Board of S. Martinelli & Company, celebrated the company's 150th anniversary with employees in Watsonville on June 24, 2018. 

Martinelli admits that the crisp sound is an accidental feature of the bottle. In fact, in its early development, he thought that consumers might think this was a flaw, but it was actually an ingenious design designed to keep the juice freshest.

"In our bottle, we have two layers of [plastic] with an oxygen barrier in between," Martinelli said. "So, it is a three-part bottle. When you dent it, the oxygen barrier in the middle will layer. It will slide between the two hard plastic layers and squeak." (But also It is left to the Internet to debunk that).

These videos cannot have a better timing, especially after Martinelli's turbulent years. From 2018 to 2019, the cider company underwent "major changes", including upgrading its Watsonville factory in Santa Cruz County. 

"We installed a new computer system and almost made us kneel down," Martinelli said. "It's a bit like building your house while you live in it, so it puts a lot of pressure on our organization. We have lost some visibility for a while."

During those years, the company withdrew marketing and advertising, even though it relaunched hard cider on the occasion of its 150th anniversary in 2018 (more on that later). Finances also took a hit, until the viral TikTok video in 2020 made sales "fire up." According to Martinelli, it has been difficult to keep up with demand since the video editing.

Original title: Elvizio "Shorty" Toroni started working for Martinelli's in 1911 and has been with the company for more than 60 years. 

Martinelli is the fourth-generation family owner of a company known for its sparkling cider, which often appears at holiday parties. When he was a high school student, he said that the Martinelli factory built in Watsonville in the mid 1880s was across the street. He often goes to lunch with friends, and then climbs up a pile of apple crates to eat. At other times, he would rush to the company office to reprint the score for the school band.  

"I was in the band at the time and they used to make these very crappy mimeographs that no one could read," Martinelli said. "I have a photocopier across the street, so I can run over and bring printed music over to make better copies."

Apple juice and sparkling cider made Martinelli a household name, but it certainly didn't start like that. When John's great-great-grandfather Stephano Martinelli immigrated from Switzerland to California in the late 1850s, he moved into his brother Luigi's Watsonville farm. Stephano initially made a living in the soda business until he and his brother realized that the farm had the perfect climate for growing apples. It didn't take long for Stephano to turn his attention to apples and start experimenting with the hard cider recipe.  

Stephen C. Martinelli and his sons, 1968. 

"He started making strong cider, because in those days there was no way to preserve apple juice for consumption as a non-alcoholic product," Martinelli said. "One of the reasons that brought apples to the West was that it was a cheap wine for pioneers. Unlike making whiskey in Kentucky, California is where people drink strong cider."

For Stephano, it became a startup, and he won the gold medal for hard cider at the Sacramento State Fair in 1890. Things went on smoothly for about 50 years, until 1914, as the strict prohibition law began to spread across the country, Martinelli was almost extinct. When the 18th Amendment finally passed the two houses of Congress in 1917 and was approved two years later, Martinelli was just right to switch to his famous non-alcoholic cider and apple juice . Stephano's eldest son Stephen, with the help of a professor of food technology at the University of California, Berkeley, learned how to pasteurize unfermented apple juice and helped Martinelli continue to operate.

Martinelli relaunched hard cider in 2018. 

The business shift may bring disaster to Martinelli's because he has never deviated from alcoholic beverages, but Stephen has enough insight to know that new beverages will be welcomed by consumers. Martinelli grew most rapidly during Prohibition, the Great Depression, and World War II. Stephen even introduced a huge half-gallon and one-gallon apple-shaped glass container to hold apple juice. In the end, even after the return of hard cider in the 1930s, sparkling cider made from a blend of up to 12 apple varieties became the drink of choice for customers. However, as sales plummeted, this spiked beverage was finally removed from store shelves in 1977.

Martinelli said that on the occasion of the company's 150th anniversary in 2018, they plan to revive this spiked beverage, but it is not that simple without a liquor license. Martinelli and Dan Gordon of Gordon Biersch eventually formed a partnership, and the latter helped to be the first to produce the long-established hard cider in San Jose.

"We make juice, give it to them, and then they ferment and bottle it. Not everyone knows this," Martinelli said.

More than a year after people started biting Martinelli’s plastic apple bottles, they continue to do so on TikTok today. Martinelli looked back at the viral videos of 2020 and was amused by them. He said that in many cases, the people trying this trend are newbies to Martinelli, and many people call the brand "TikTok Apple Juice." But Martinelli said that what he remembered most was their expressions, especially for those who took a sip of juice, before they finished the process and said, "Wow, this is great."

Susana Guerrero is a reporter for SFGATE, covering the food in the Bay Area. She received a master's degree in journalism from the Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, and a bachelor's degree in English from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a native of the Bay Area. Email her Susana.Guerrero@sfgate.com