On Friday afternoon, Jennifer Garner was at the New York Stock Exchange. Alongside her cofounders Cassandra Curtis and John Foraker, she’d just taken her company, Once Upon a Farm, public. Employees and their children celebrated nearby.
“We probably slept an hour each,” Garner told Fortune hours after the company started trading as OFRM.
Curtis founded Once Upon a Farm as a nutritional baby food brand more than a decade ago. More than eight years ago, Garner and Foraker joined her to scale up the business into a new phase, with all three taking on the title of cofounder. (Foraker, the former CEO of Annie’s, is the company’s CEO.) Today, Once Upon a Farm does $200 million in annual sales, according to its S-1 filing, and is sold in 19,000 stores. While the brand started with baby food, it’s expanded into food for kids, including popular yogurt pouches.
Once Upon a Farm’s IPO raised $198 million for the company, with a $724 million valuation. Its share price is up almost 40% from its $18 listing price, trading at $25.10 today. The S-1 includes details about Garner’s compensation structure with Once Upon a Farm; she will serve on the new public company’s board of directors and continue to hold her role as cofounder and spokesperson, or “Farmer Jen,” for which she was paid $1 million last year and has $2-3 million in expected compensation each year through 2028. That doesn’t include her stock options and a bonus tied to the company’s IPO price.
The IPO, Garner says, helps Once Upon a Farm continue its mission—”to drive systemic improvement in childhood nutrition for a happier, healthier and more equitable world.” If the brand had pursued an exit to a major food conglomerate, its existing team would have lost control of the business. It’s a mission connected to Garner’s longtime work as an ambassador for Save the Children. “Keeping this company independent, running this company ourselves really gives us the chance to stay true to our values of trying to democratize great food for all kids and be parents’ ally,” Garner says.
After raising this capital, Once Upon a Farm plans to focus on “the lunchbox,” or its offerings for older kids.
The Wall Street Journal called the “MAHA era” Once Upon a Farm’s potential moment. The company did name-check the Make America Healthy Again movement in its S-1 for its potential impact on the food regulatory landscape.
Curtis sees the positives in more attention on ingredients and nutrition. “It’s really exciting to see that the U.S. dietary guidelines are finally catching up to what we’ve always stood for and really empathizing real food, less processed, fruits and veggies,” she says.
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