AOC Revisits Jennifer Garner's Once Upon a Farm As PBC Kids Food Company
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Healthy Food for Kids Unites Jennifer Garner and Ron Finley
It’s been over five years since AOC wrote about Jennifer Garner’s co-owned business ‘Once Upon a Farm’. Our focus in summer 2018 was the actor’s support of Ron Finley, the Gangsta Gardener of the Ron Finley Project.
Finley and Garner were in Amangassett for a fun-filled, produce-picking event and kids-focused, healthy-foods education for all American kids, not only East-Enders.
Once Upon a Farm later donated the gardening plot from the event, along with $10,000 to NYC’s Edible Schoolyard. The nonprofit partners with New York City public schools to cultivate healthy students and communities through hands-on cooking and gardening education, with the goal of transforming children’s relationship with food.
Guerilla Gardner Finley launched his career as a fashion designer, but his life trajectory changed when a warrant was issued for his arrest. His crime? Finley was growing a garden on a curbside dirt strip in South Central Los Angeles.
Today, Ron Finley is on MasterClass, with a bio description stating about his arrest: “He fought back, got the laws changed, and started a movement.” Finley’s 8-part MasterClass series gets rave reviews.
Once Upon a Farm IPO Prep
Jennifer Garner got AOC’s attention today after seeing a Fortune Magazine headline that Once Upon a Farm is now a $100 million business eyeing an IPO.
When Garner joined the brand in 2017, it had annual revenues less than $1 million with founders Cassandra Curtis and Ari Raz. Garner came on board at the same time as CEO John Foraker.
Since then, the Farm team has raised more than $100 million in funding and expanded into new categories, including oat bars and dairy product. Ari Raz is now at another California starup called The Coconut Cult.
The new product expansion puts Once Upon a Farm in the kids aisle, not only babies. This more robust shopping zone has 10-15x the revenue of babies, excepting formula.
Co-founder Jennifer Garner; Courtesy of Once Upon a Farm
Updating AOC’s knowledge-base about Jennifer Garner and Once Upon a Farm, we note that Garner remains an ambassador for Save the Children. We delved into this topic — and now First Lady Jill Biden’s history with Save the Children — in our 2018 article.
The world-renowned organization works with poor children in America, as well as global children in refugee camps and other locations of extreme poverty. A logical question to ask is whether or not Save the Children is involved in America’s refugee crisis; the answer is ‘yes’. And Save the Children is a primary beneficiary of Once Upon a Farm’s philanthropy.
B-Corp Status v. PBC [Public Benefit Corporation]
Anne of Carversville is always trying to expand our collective knowledge base when researching the topics of our posts. If Anne is not familiar with a topic, there’s a good chance that our readers aren’t informed either.
The advantage of having our wonderful AI assistant Lulu is that when an interesting question declares itself, Lulu is back in 30-45 seconds with an answer. What a whiz!
AOC knew in 2018 that Once Upon a Farm had B-Corp status. But we were confused reading today that the company also registered as a Public Benefit Corporation [PBC] in 2021.
Because this question is of a general nature, we will post Lulu’s answer to our query about the differences between the two designations in its own post in short order.
We sent Lulu back to her research with a query about how PBC designated companies do with IPOs [initial public offerings] as is under consideration by Once Upon a Farm. What is the impact of saying profits of stockholders take priority before everything else? We’ve also queried PBCs in Europe, compared to America. And, we’ve asked Lulu to discuss the impact of right-wing legal challenges to the very existence of PBCs and their broader embrace of conscientious capitalism.
Related: Jennifer Garner's Once Upon a Farm Has an Audacious, Mission-Driven Plan for Hypergrowth Inc. Magazine
