Stanley Albert Star

One of the northern Chautauqua County’s “brilliant” business and community leaders has passed.

Stanley Albert Star, who co-founded Cliffstar Corp. and, through extraordinary determination and leadership, built it into the largest and most respected private label beverage company in the United States, died Friday at 89. His obituary notes he was “a devoted husband, loving father, and loyal friend whose 89 years left an indelible mark on all who knew him.”

In 1971, Star and his Uncle Leo Star created Cliffstar, which would become the nation’s largest private-label juice company. “I was convinced that the popularity of juice as a regular drink was going to grow tremendously,” Star said in the book, “Achieving Stardom” by Dick Hirsch. “There was an increasing awareness of the importance of health and physical fitness. I believed that people would be buying juice rather than soft drinks and wine.”

Cliffstar’s rise would include acquisitions in California, Washington, South Carolina and the building of a plant in Missouri. It led to a work force of 1,200 employees nationwide with 600 of those working in Dunkirk-Fredonia.

“Stan is a brilliant businessman,” noted Peter Poth, who was a member of the Cliffstar board of directors and a former president of Delaware North, in the book. “He took a small business and built it into a colossal enterprise. He took chances, sometimes borrowing heavily. He worked relentlessly. There were periods when he traveled continuously; he was making both sales calls on potential and existing customers as well as dealing with growers whose produce he was negotiating to purchase.”

Cliffstar was sold to Cott and is currently Refresco in Dunkirk.

Star was a dedicated philanthropist. With his wife, Elizabeth, he endowed the Star Commons, a community gathering space at the Duke University School of Law, and established the Star Precision Medicine Center of Excellence in Mood Disorder at Johns Hopkins Medicine. He gave back to the communities he called home by naming the Star Hospice House in Jamestown, NY and by supporting the Darwin Barker Library in Fredonia, the Grape Discovery Center in Westfield, and the Dunkirk Police Department.

A full obituary can be read here: https://www.observertoday.com/obituaries/2026/05/stanley-albert-star/