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Wall Street just handed a high-five to celebrity entrepreneurship as Once Upon a Farm — the organic children’s food company co-founded by Jennifer Garner — priced its IPO at $18 a share and opened trading at a valuation around $724 million, with the stock jumping roughly 17 percent on debut. The market’s initial enthusiasm sent the share price into the low twenties by the close, validating a business that turned a kitchen-table idea into a nationwide brand.
Garner, who joined the company in 2017 as chief brand officer and was later given co-founder status, still owns about a seven percent stake, a position that instantly translated into tens of millions on day one. That kind of payoff is exactly what a free market is supposed to do: reward risk, branding and consumer trust, not political pedigree.
The numbers behind the headlines are mixed: Once Upon a Farm reported roughly $225 million in revenue for the year ending September 2025 but also posted a substantial loss, which widened as the company scaled into new retailers. Expansion costs, slotting fees and a push into frozen and refrigerated categories have eaten into profits even as distribution grew to tens of thousands of stores.
Conservatives should cheer the entrepreneurial spirit on display while refusing to sugarcoat the financial realities. An IPO built on strong brand affinity and rapid top-line growth is worthy of praise, but investors and markets must remain wary of companies that go public before consistent profitability is proven.
There’s also a larger cultural lesson here about market demand versus elite virtue signaling. Consumers, not regulators or celebrity endorsements alone, decided that a product touting organic and clean-label credentials deserved shelf space, and retailers responded by allocating valuable refrigerated real estate — a commercial confirmation that shoppers vote with their wallets.
Prudent skepticism is still in order: the company raised roughly $198 million in the IPO and will need to convert that capital into sustained, profitable growth rather than perpetual expansion funded by marketing and placement fees. Those are the kinds of hard-nosed metrics that separate enduring businesses from trendy bubbles.
At the end of the day, Once Upon a Farm’s public debut is a reminder that free enterprise works — it creates opportunities for creators, rewards risk-takers and gives consumers choice. Conservatives can both celebrate this market success and insist on accountability, clear balance sheets and sensible stewardship of investor capital so that today’s IPO becomes tomorrow’s durable company, not a cautionary tale.
