The local suffragist farmer Antonie Viljoen is recorded as the first purchaser of apple trees in the area. However it was in fact his farm workers who first successfully farmed them, on their own plots, and through their own private initiative. In 1903 the Italian South African Molteno family also began to farm in the area - including two brothers who - together with Viljoen's "Oak Valley" farms - helped to build the town's deciduous fruit industry. Another influential pioneer for this period in Grabouw's history was a local woman farmer - Kathleen Murray. She was extremely active also in Grabouw community development (and later became an enthusiastic member of the Black Sash movement). These enterprises turned Grabouw into the hub of Southern Africa's largest single export fruit-producing area. Other influential pioneers were the Beukes family and the Franco-Italian immigrant Edmond Lombardi, who created an apple-juice drink he called "Appletiser", on his nearby farm Applethwaite, and introduced it to the market in 1966.