One man's mission to save the Gravenstein
Cameron Woodruff, the founder of The Gentle Hearth, is bringing an expanding line of organic, Gravenstein-based provisions to local markets — along with a message of hope and resilience
Cameron Woodruff, 41, of Forestville, is a man with a mission: to save the Gravenstein apple from obscurity. To that end, he recently started a business, The Gentle Hearth, which sells high-quality Gravenstein foodstuffs at local farmers’ markets.
“It’s a full-time effort, and it’s a labor of love,” he said during a recent phone call.
The idea came to him as an epiphany of sorts. As a child growing up in Marin, Woodruff often spent time at his grandparents’ farm in Occidental. Those visits included eating his grandmother’s special pies, made from apples harvested from the 6-acre orchard. He carried those memories and that local farm heritage with him into adulthood, watching the Gravenstein legacy decline over the decades as he pursued work as a piano tuner and technician, sound recording engineer, and guitar teacher. In 2025, the announcement by Manzana Products Co., the last local historic apple cannery, that it would relocate to Washington and close its plant in Graton in 2027, seemed in many ways to be the Gravenstein’s final farewell.
Last July, while fondly recalling his childhood and realizing how fortunate he was to have had the safe, welcoming environment of his grandparents’ farm, replete with its Gravenstein apples, Woodruff made a lighthearted comment to an old family friend.
“You know, my brother and I should just start a business making Gravenstein products,” he said.
The idea stayed with him and wouldn’t go away, and by September, he was in business.
Woodruff currently produces three organic products at the Harvest Cafe’s commercial kitchen in the Sebastopol Area Senior Center, where he does his cooking and baking. As listed at www.thegentlehearth.com, the products are: Gravenstein Mustard in an 8-oz. jar for $17; Smokey Gravenstein Barbecue Sauce at $18 per jar; and Grandma’s Gravenstein Apple Pies at $45 each.
The mustard, Woodruff said, is made from Gravenstein-infused avocado oil and apple cider vinegar. He reduces organic Gravenstein juice to a syrup and uses that as the base for both sauces, and also uses freeze-dried Gravenstein powder. He smokes the syrup for the barbecue sauce, which also contains apple cider vinegar.
The pies are his grandmother’s recipe, complete with a forgotten secret ingredient he sleuthed through trial and error. The organic apples come from Dutton Ranch, and he sources as many ingredients as he can from other local farms and orchards—orchards that remind him of his grandparents’ place in Occidental.
“The Gentle Hearth is my way of carrying that heritage forward, creating real demand for local apples and helping our farming community thrive again,” he said.
His mission statement for The Gentle Hearth says it all:
The Gravenstein helped define this region. We’re working to bring that legacy forward, crafting year-round apple provisions from organic, small-farm fruit and the recipes our grandparents trusted.
We partner with local growers and are working to maintain real demand for the apples and farms that built this community. Every pie, jar and bottle is our way of honoring what came before—and rebuilding something strong, rooted, and alive for the generations ahead.
Woodruff sells his products at the Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market at the Luther Burbank Center in Santa Rosa on Saturday and at the Tuesday Petaluma East Side Farmers’ Market at 320 N. McDowell Blvd. He’s making efforts to expand to a larger audience and is currently in talks to attend the Sunday Fort Mason Center Farmers’ Market in San Francisco.
And in addition to creating more high-quality Gravenstein-based foodstuffs, he is also in the process of getting licensed to produce his own ice cream, which he serves with single pie-slices at the weekly markets.
“The goal is for people to be able to order online, and they can pick it up at the Senior Center, and maybe we’ll do a delivery service, but primarily for the moment, it’s farmers’ markets. And very soon we’re going to be entering local physical stores,” he said.
Business is so brisk that Woodruff’s been working seven days a week for the past six months. He has two assistants: his mother helps with the recipes, and his friend and mentor — local baker/filmmaker Peter Bettendorf — helps him perfect his product.
The two met in passing at the Senior Center, where Bettendorf also uses the cafe kitchen, in his case to bake almond cakes for The Sebastopol Cookie Company. But it wasn’t until Bettendorf tasted Woodruff’s apple pie that he became a true believer in Woodruff’s Gravenstein vision.
“I was having this kind of existential moment with a piece of pie, and I realized, ‘OK, this guy, he’s onto something,’” Bettendorf said. “In Cameron, I see an individual who’s really sincere. And he has a great product. I’ve seen a lot of entrepreneurs, and his style and his approach strike me as being really superior.”
Bettendorf observes and assists Woodruff in the kitchen, helping him with technical support in areas where he needs it most, such as tightening up processes, with mental preparation for production—even going so far as to clean the kitchen himself at the end of long, exhausting shifts.
The Gentle Hearth will attend the Gravenstein Apple Fair on Aug. 8-9, with both a sales booth and a table in the Artisan Tasting Grove. Bettendorf is currently working with Woodruff on a solution to baking the huge number of pies they will need for the event.
Meanwhile, “It feels wholesome to just be making Gravenstein apple pies and seeing people smile,” Woodruff said. “When the tide rises, all boats rise, right? So what I’m doing with Gravensteins feeds into a larger perspective, which is that I believe that communities are strengthened by having control of their food supply.
“And I think our local food production — our farms, our orchards, our dairies — this is a hyper-specific way, by supporting the Gravensteins, to feed into that larger cause.”
Find out more at www.thegentlehearth.com.
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Thank you. I hope he has reached out to our Slow Food Russian River Apple Project working to Save the Gravensteins for over 20years. Paula Shadkin heads that project. We worked with all the Apple growers years back to encourage them to transition to organic. Most did. We are the only Free Community Apple Press running from August to October up at Luther Burbank farm on Bodega Highway. We raise money to bring school classes up there to experience Apple pressing and tasting. We also have our press at the annual Gravenstein Apple Fair , this year August 8 and 9th. I hope Cameron joins Slow Food RR.
My mouth is watering. Can't wait to try them all.