John Foraker | CEO | Once Upon a Farm
John Foraker is Co-Founder and CEO of leading children’s nutrition company Once Upon A Farm. While the father of four was raised in a conventional farming family, he went onto study agricultural economics at UC Davis, attend business school at UC Berkeley, and become fixated on consumer goods and the natural, organic food movement. After helping launch an infused oil company that invested in Annie’s, which was at the time a natural mac and cheese company, John became CEO of the company and shifted its mission toward bringing organic goods from niche to mainstream in the U.S. After the company went public, Annie’s was acquired by General Mills, where John consulted for the company’s organic food companies.
Eager to invest in another food company, he discovered Once Upon a Farm, which was alone in its mission to distribute fresh, organic baby food. He signed on as co-founder in 2017, continuing to drive purpose around healthy and clean food access for babies. In the last 7 years, Once Upon a Farm has been groundbreaking in the industry, expanding the portfolio to exceed expectations in delivering nutritional superiority in meals and snacks for babies to big kids across the store and with their own robust DTC subscription service. The >$100M company leads in the creation of fresh snacking sets at key retailers, and continues to increase expectations in the baby aisle with their own coolers aiding in their mission of driving systemic improvements in childhood nutrition.