Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Zhang Nan is stepping down as CEO of TikTok’s Chinese sister company, working dads are feeling the same heat as working moms, and Jennifer Garner’s Once Upon a Farm is a $100 million business. Have a terrific Thursday!
– Beyond baby. When you think of the most successful celebrity-backed brands, the beauty industry first may pop to mind first. But actress Jennifer Garner has helped build a brand that now earns north of $100 million in annual revenue—selling baby food.
Jennifer Garner joined the brand Once Upon a Farm in 2017. Cassandra Curtis had founded the nutritious baby food brand two years earlier, but the actress came onboard alongside former Annie’s CEO John Foraker to take it to the next level.
At the time, Once Upon a Farm was earning less than $1 million in annual revenue; today its yearly haul is “well over $100 million,” Foraker says. That growth has been accelerated by more than $100 million in funding, according to PitchBook, most recently a $52 million Series D round led by CAVU Venture Partners.
The brand is best known for its fruit and vegetable blend refrigerated pouches and in recent months has expanded into new categories, including oat bars and dairy products. That expansion takes Once Upon a Farm outside baby food to the kids’ food category, which Foraker says is 10 to 15 times bigger than baby food (excluding formula).
Jennifer Garner, cofounder of Once Upon a Farm. Courtesy of Once Upon a Farm “It’s a lot harder than what I thought it would be,” Garner says of growing a consumer-packaged-goods business. Part of that challenge was realizing the opportunity that would lie ahead in pivoting from baby to kids’ food. “We realized, ‘Wow, we’re actually a kids’ brand, even though we talk about ourselves as baby,'” she says.
Foraker brought to Once Upon a Farm expertise from his time leading Annie’s, which he took public in 2012 and then sold to General Mills. “This business has grown faster than Annie’s ever did,” he says. About 10% of its sales are direct-to-consumer and the rest comes from retailers like Whole Foods and Kroger.
While Garner was always passionate about nutritious kids’ foods (she’s spent more than a decade as an ambassador for Save the Children), Once Upon a Farm’s recent category expansion has shown her more about the challenges of the industry.
“It was a big deal for us to leave the pouch and go to a bar—bars are huge. There’s just an enormous market. But there’s such huge competition in the kids’ bar space. It’s really insane,” she says. To move into dairy, with pouches that resemble kids’ yogurt products, the brand relied on retailer data that said that 95% of people who bought its products also had dairy in their shopping carts.
Foraker’s plan for Once Upon a Farm is to prepare for a possible IPO. Even if it doesn’t end up happening—the other outcome is selling to a CPG giant—he wants the brand to have the option. “We’re getting this business ready to be public, if that market ever comes around,” he says.
Emma Hinchliffe
[email protected]
@_emmahinchliffe
The Broadsheet is Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Today’s edition was curated by Joseph Abrams. Subscribe here.
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- Switching lanes. Zhang Nan is stepping down as CEO of Douyin Group after 10 years at TikTok's Chinese sister company. Zhang, who goes by the English name Kelly, helped turn Douyin Group into one of the most popular apps in China, and will now transition to a new role at video editing app Jianying, which is also owned by TikTok and Douyin parent ByteDance. Reuters
- Discouraged dads. Men trying to balance child care responsibilities with the workplace grind are starting to encounter the same microaggressions working women have endured for decades. Implementing more workplace flexibility and parental support can combat toxicity, especially since studies show that more involved fathers reap positive rewards for the child and parent. Fortune
- Elf on the wealth. E.l.f. Cosmetics CFO Mandy Fields told Fortune that consistently low product prices and healthy investments in marketing are the reasons the beauty company just reported its 20th straight quarter of growth. The brand is already popular among Gen Z, and Fields says the next frontier is millennials and their parents. Fortune
- Ronna way. Republican National Convention Chair Ronna McDaniel reportedly told former President Donald Trump that she will step down from the role soon after the South Carolina primary on Feb. 24. McDaniel, who took the position in 2017 and is the longest serving RNC chair in history, is expected to be replaced by Trump-admired Michael Watley. New York Times
- Ad interception. Advertisements tailored to women are filling the much-anticipated lineup of commercials for Sunday’s Super Bowl. Some of the already-previewed Sunday commercials feature actresses like Scarlett Johansson for M&M’s, Jennifer Aniston for Uber Eats, and Jenna Ortega for Frito-Lay’s. CNN
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Miner Freeport-McMoRan named Kathleen Quirk as chief executive officer. Cobalt appointed Sonali Shah to its board of directors.
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