Jennifer Garner’s Kid’s snacks brand IPO’d earlier this year, but the financials are heading in the wrong direction in brutal categories.

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Every week my team runs their scheduled sweeps to determine:

Everything is routed into my Claude instance. Schedule tasks kick off every Friday afternoon to update the data and Monday morning to build our internal dashboards and reports.

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It takes a lot of work to set everything up, but we are starting to crack the layer of decision making where the next step is the agents executing the plans they bring me instead of me passing it to the team.

Note: As always, none of what follows is legal, tax, investing, financial, or any other sort of advice. And I was never here 😉.

Once Upon a Farm (Jennifer Garner’s organic cold pressed Baby/Kids snack biz) is watching their growth slow and margin erode 

Meanwhile their Baby food biz is EXPLODING and will become the biz in 2 years. Growing like crazy at Retail + getting approved in 20 states for WIC approved products.

Once Upon a Time S1

This biz is too small to go public, and with some clean up can be on a 🚀 growth trajectory. Baby is growing +112% YoY vs. Kids at +5.4%. In 2026 Baby will overtake as the largest biz unit and has so much TAM to continue expanding.

But they have to get their cost structure in order first.

Founded:

Aha Moment:

Growth:

Model:

Where We Are Now:

Competitive Benchmarking (GAAP)

Sources: OFRM FY2025 Earnings (BusinessWire 3/12/26); FRPT Q3 2025 results (investor.freshpet.com); HAIN FY2025 8-K (SEC EDGAR 8/25). *HAIN net loss includes $248M after-tax goodwill impairment.

The Gaps That Matter:

Here are the 3 ways we're turning Once Upon a Farm into a $2B future of Gerber.

OFRM deployed 3,400 branded coolers across US retailers. Each one cost $3-8K in slotting fees. It’s all considered Retail slotting fees. They don't own a single fridge.

Each cooler generates $12K/year in retail sales at the shelf -- roughly $7.2K in OFRM net revenue. The slotting fee wipes out the first 18 months of revenue from each unit. 

They have to kill the plan to add 1,000+ more coolers in 2026.

The Retails stores with these coolers only account for 15% of total Rev and 100% of their Gross Margin Compression.  

Their largest customers (Target, Walmart, Krogers, etc) stock OFRM’s products in the normal refrigeration sections.

They’re investing in worse performing stores, with refrigerators they don’t own, that’s eating away at their gross margin.

STOP DEPLOYING COOLERS!

Keep the coolers they have. Make the money back on them then cycle out of them completely.

This frees up $3-5m/yr to deploy the cash into programs that drive people into the store.

Takeaway: Rented Grocery aisles aren’t moats. They’re temp attention arbs in store.

Jennifer Garner is the current face of the brand. Which is an incredible fit since she’s a cofounder, but she’s a premium/aspirational lifestyle figure: the Whole Foods mom, the organic smoothie, the weekend farmer's market. 

That's a $50 demographic. OFRM’s greatest market opportunity today is cashing in on the 20 states they’re approved to sell certain products through WIC. 

Michelle Obama is the perfect face for the next evolution of the brand.

Keep Jennifer Gardner for the Luxury mom who’s going to spend $100+/mo on her kids healthy snacks.

But not all of OFRM’s products are sold in both. There are specific SKUs customers can only buy through WIC and other that are only full priced.

The marketing because we sell expensive healthy cold pressed products to your kids so we can afford to offer high quality healthy alternatives through WIC.

Bring in Michelle Obama to speak to that Audience plus the mothers on welfare who need a trusting face to convince them to feed their babies/children with this new start up’s cold pressed pouches.

And Michelle Obama checks every box. 

Chart: OFRM FY2025-FY2030 revenue model. MO deal activates Year 2, funded by cooler savings. Total FY2030: ~$576M at ~19% CAGR. Sources: SEC EDGAR 10-K/S-1, LBAB financial model.

We can start by taking the $3-5m OFRM is torching on coolers and invest as the anchor brand for the podcast and if it goes well bring her on as an official brand ambassador.

PR and Lobbying are a key component here. OFRM is only WIC approved in 20 states. Brining on the profile level of Michelle Obama will not only help bring awareness and push units it will also bring in the political halo to get more involved in government food programs.

Takeaway: Celebrities have their time + place with a brand. Don’t get stuck with 1.

4.4m kids eat at CACFP-funded child care centers every single day. CACFP (Child and Adult Care Food Program) is a federal nutrition reimbursement program -- centers buy qualifying food, submit for reimbursement, and the government pays. No vendor approval process. No procurement bid.

1.1m/4.4mare infants and toddlers. There are 0 organic refrigerated options for any of them today.

This is the institutional channel OFRM hasn't touched. And it's a gift.

Their Baby Food Bowls already meet CACFP nutritional requirements for infant feeding components. The WIC approval is proof of federal standards compliance. 

They just need to enter the channel. How?

List Baby Food Bowls through Sysco, US Foods, and Gordon Food Service. The 3 distributors reaching 90%+ of US child care centers.

If they convince child care directors to choose what to serve, and the government reimburses them. Near-zero churn. Annual contracts renewed by program directors.

A National Sysco listing + 6 dedicated sales reps (costs $1-2m) will open up one of their largest potential channels that create more retail customers.

Chart: CACFP/Head Start 5-year revenue model. Base case: $40.1M Year 5 at 10% penetration. Gross profit ~$11.2M/yr at 28% margin. Entry cost: $1.5-2M. Sources: USDA CACFP data, LBAB financial model.

This program alone could add 10-20% more sticky Rev to their biz every year and diversify away from their dependence on large retailers.

Takeaway:  When you already have the regulatory stamp. Move into all the adjacent channels.

This is yet another brand with great potential who IPO’d too early because they needed to clear up their fundraising mistakes.

And I get it. OFRM started 10 years ago, was holding debt and an IPO would clean up their finances for them.

But they are losing a lot of money mostly from the costs from being a public company.

The ongoing cost to stay public is ~$24-27m/yr. For a company with ~$100m in Gross profits that’s an unsustainable cost for a biz that needs to be investing in growth, new product lines and operating models.

There is a benefit to being a public company.

Especially with the more gov’t focus they now have.

But a $250m brand doesn’t have a right to go public. And it rarely works out well.