Embed from Getty ImagesJennifer Garner has a new video interview with Vanity Fair, taken on stage at their Founders Fair in New York yesterday. She’s promoting her organic fresh-pressed baby food company, Once Upon a Farm, which I didn’t realize she was so hands on with. (Update: an earlier version of this story said she founded it. That is not correct, she came on after it was founded. I’m sorry for the confusion.) She recenly bought the farm her mom grew up on and then hired her uncle to farm it to create produce for the company. Garner spoke passionately about the project and about how the cause is close to her. She was born in West Virginia and saw poverty’s effects on children firsthand. She’s worked with Save The Children for years and food insecurity is an issue that’s personal to her. You can watch the video below and here are some quotes from her interview.
On how this company is personal for her
If you’re going to be spending your time on it, your money… it has got to be something that is truly authentic to you, to your experience.Having grown up in West Virginia, while I had a middle class upbringing I was surrounded by generational poverty and saw that the kids were not advancing in school like my sisters and I were… I really saw it and I was really disturbed by how unfair that was.
My mom grew up poor on a farm in Oklahoma. Once I had a little bit of a voice I felt like ‘who is helping the kids like my mom? Who is helping the kids like I grew up with?’
Save the Children, our programs in the US focus on kids in rural America. I cold called them and said ‘hey do you mind if I work with you guys?’ I’ve been there almost 11 years. I’m now a trustee for the organization as well.
She bought the farm her mom grew up on
My family’s farm in Locust Grove, Oklahoma. It’s now mine… it’s not huge, it’s not impressive. It has a lot of old pecan trees… it’s where my mom grew up. The house is so small that you can’t stand up inside of it.We are leasing this farm and my uncle is being put to work and he is going to be our farmer. It’s really coming full circle for my family and for my mom. Honestly it’s a little bit about the marketing for it. This is my family, this is where I come from. I am a farmer’s daughter’s daughter.
She has a garden, beehives and chickens in LA
If you go to my house in California you’ll see seven beehives and you’ll see six chickens, we just lost one, and you’ll see a little orchard and a garden that we eat out of every single day of the world [sic].She was asked how she balances things
You don’t balance it. Right now I’m in production. If I’m not in production I’m with my kids. If I work out it’s a crazy hour of the morning.She was asked about snacks and if her kids get Oreos
I make a lot of homemade granola bars, I make a lot of homemade breads. You know there are some cookies. If Ben is around, [Oreos] might happen. Then he gets credit for it. I want to be like ‘I like Oreos too. I’m fun too!’
As for television, she said she loves to work on it “for the relationships” and that you have a type of familial relationship with your coworkers. “When you can’t get rid of the other people and you’re stuck with them no matter what… that’s what TV means to me.” She also praised Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner’s writing and gushed about how fun it is to work on that show.
At the end she was asked her goals for her business and she gave the quote that’s in the title. She said “My main favorite goal, and I know this is a goal that’s shared with the amazing team I work with, is to have the first organic W.I.C. option for babies. . . . Otherwise, as they always say cause it sounds cool to all of you people, ‘We want to disrupt a category. We’re gonna disrupt a category…
“I don’t know what in the world they’re talking about. I grin and smile, but I’m learning.” She just might get her food accepted into the W.I.C. program. Once Upon a Farm is available in the refrigerated section of some supermarkets in NY and LA. (It may be available in other cities but their search form is not that easy to use.)
Garner gets a lot of well-deserved flack for capitalizing on interest in her personal life, but she did impress me here. She started a socially conscious business when she could have cashed in with something a little easier like so many other celebrities. She’s not doing this for the money.
You can see the video on Vanity Fair. I would embed it but it’s autoplay.
Here’s Garner out in NY yesterday and Wednesday. BRB I’m going to go do some pushups.
photos credit: Backgrid and Getty
I agree. I’ll give her that one. That is a good cause, which I am also dedicated to where I live. I hope her brand becomes the first organic baby food WIC option!
I think this is a great cause, too. She’s been involved with Save the Children for so long, and I think it is a really worthy organization. It’s a good strategy to target an issue and attack it from multiple angles as she is doing here.
She just needs to at least match the other brands in price probably. Baby food is pretty expensive in jars and plastic containers and the price keeps going up.
A good small blender would probably pay for itself pretty quickly for people with kitchen/electricity/refrigerator access, that might be another project for someone. Maybe a kit with everything they would need. I know people who pretty much just blend up whatever the rest of the family is eating for baby, more or less.
Tribest has a good personal blender with mason jar attachment and it fits any wide mouth mason jar including small ones. I’ve used mine to purée cat food for ailing beasties. Or for picky beasties – one cat would only lick the gravy from canned cat food until I puréed it, then he enthusiastically ate any brand I tried. He still ate dry food also, so it wasn’t a mouth problem. Maybe he just didn’t like the texture.
I used a dedicated blade and adapter since I don’t like to think about traces of cat food in my own food… Only takes 15-20 seconds to blend. (The extra is all set to be refrigerated in the jar it’s blended in, I even got screw caps for convenience.)
Oxo also has some really sturdy 2oz freezer containers for homemade baby food, although people also use ice cube trays. But the commercial ones would be handy away from the kitchen. I use them for nondairy ice cream.
Alright Jen. I’m caving. I had always been on the fence about you. Now you’ve done gone impressed me by being socially aware and putting your money where your mouth is. Kudos.
Me too!
I really like this idea. As someone who was on W.I.C. for a while when I had my first baby, it’s a great idea. I love that she’s lending her voice to it. Just like Mariah Carey speaking out about her struggle with bipolar, I really feel like when celebrities put their voice to something, it can reduce stigmas – I mean, those are two completely separate issues, but also two issues that are stigmatized. I’d love to see something here on Mariah Carey’s opening up (unless it’s been posted and I missed it lol) As someone who struggles with bipolar II as well, her story spoke to me deeply, and it’s always so scary to tell anyone or seek treatment. You’re afraid it will keep you from being hired, afraid it will be used against you if a child custody thing comes up, when it’s really a very manageable thing.
Shannon, the Mariah post was on April 11. I was glad to see her shedding light on bipolar as well.
Ahhh! Thank you for directing me to it! I sometimes miss a post; I’ll go back and look for it 🙂
OMG her arms! They look amazing.
I wonder if push-ups are enough and how many??
I’m up to 15 right now LOL. My arms are atrocious!
#armgoals
Many barre or Tracy Anderson arms workouts available on YouTube (no material required).
I don t like the lady that much but she knows how to tone arms.
I do lots of different exercises for my arms (I have guns if I’m allowed to brag a bit) and push-ups are unquestionably the best and simplest exercise you can do for them.
Her arms do look fantastic though. She’s just a really fit woman in general.
I use resistance bands, yoga, Pilates, pushups, rowing, and dips. The key is paying attention to all of the muscle groups. I don’t use heavy weights because I am not interested in bulk as much as tone, endurance, strength, and length. Sometimes I mix it up some with kickboxing or swimming. Boredom is the enemy of exercise at least for me.
I like Jennifer and I love WIC as my family used briefly as did my sisters with their children. The options are limited and the goals are primarily not about health or taste. This would be amazing for so many families that are in food deserts and have limited access to fresh food!! There is such a stigma for government programs like WIC and always happy to see celebrities not only supporting these causes but thinking of ways to make it better. I’m rooting for you Jen!!
My God, I can’t stand this woman anymore. Am I the only one?
Went to see Love, Simon, this week and I almost left the theater when I saw she was in it 🙁
I just find her very hard to take and I’m not even sure why. She just irritates me. However, I’ll put that aside for a moment and praise her for bringing attention to WIC.
I know. I feel mean sometimes, but her earnestness makes me think dark thoughts. She can be like a mouthful of sugar on an empty stomach.
However, this is a good thing. So I support this.
I’m with you. I understand my annoyance though. Does anyone remember when Jen did Conan with a low cut, showing everything, bombshell type dress and she lectured him that “snuck” was not a word? “And you [Conan] went to Harvard, you should know that!” That is the Jennifer Garner that is annoying as all get out, and more. It made Conan grab a dictionary and show everyone that snuck is past tense for sneak.
I have to mute the tv when her credit card commercial (I think- Might be an airplane company) comes on. It just sounds like she’s talking baby talk and I can’t stand it.
But I don’t have anything against her as a person 🙂
I’m ambivalent about her but that commercial is SO. F*CKING. AWFUL.
I generally like her, but agree that commercial is pretty annoying.
This sounds like a great thing she’s doing though, and I wish her a lot of success with it.
She annoys me in general but in this article/post she does come across as perceptive and genuinely concerned.
I’m impressed, this is terrific. (I’m impressed by her arms, too. Damn I need to get to the gym.)
She is supporting and showcasing a good
Program in W.I.C.
I am sure this is well intended, but, ah, not sure if organic is high on the priority list for WIC recipients. If it gets fresh food into the homes of the poor, though, I can’t really sh*t on it.
I do, however, like her to answer to “how do you balance?” The answer being “she doesn’t.” We could use more honesty on that issue because if a woman in her financial position can’t, we need to stop expecting it from women in lower income classes.
Healthier options is actually one of the most common comments from WIC users. Of course they primarily just want to feed their families but basic peanut butter and high fructose juice just ain’t cutting it. I say this as a past user of WIC….
Juice with high fructose corn syrup is allowed on WIC in your state? That’s shocking to me. It’s not allowed in Michigan. It has to be 100% juice and there are organic options for a lot of foods.
I was on wic and I cared sheesh. Lower income people care about feeding their babies pesticide free too.
Most new moms poor or not have read an article or heard about healthiest options. Though it can’t be their main priority many will get the organic baby food over the not-organic if either way it’s free.
And all that said wic is practically for middle class families too. Their requirements are low – you barely even have to be low income to get wic.
This is true. Many of the families that come through the organizations I support and work with want healthy food. They have access to the same information and ask questions about nutrition. There are a lot of misconceptions about poverty and hunger in this country and who is affected by it.
Lower income people actually care a lot more than you think, and would be more than happy to get healthier options if they were affordable and available to them. We aren’t all addicts to processed food and/or resistant to change.
this is not fair. Poor does not necessarily equals ignorant and careless.
She has amazing arms! Also, if she wants to bring high quality food at very affordable prices then good for her! Many, many families in America struggle with putting good quality, healthy food on the table. It is a HUGE problem. Food security. Unfortunately junk/not as healthy food is so cheap…and organic/healthy foods are not cheap at all. It just isn’t even an option for so many families. Hell, a bag of healthy nuts at my market is 12-15$! You shouldn’t have to be wealthy to eat good quality heath food…or healthy insurance but don’t get me started.
This seems like a great company and a great initiative, but just to be clear, and to give credit to the actual co-founders, she didn’t start this company. She’s lending her brand, her monay and some farmland to it – but it was co-founded by two others in 2015, and she partnered up:
http://www.organicauthority.com/former-annies-ceo-john-foraker-joins-jennifer-garner-at-organic-baby-food-startup/
“The company was founded by entrepreneurs Cassandra Curtis and Ari Raz in 2015 and currently offers a line of twelve cold-pressed organic baby food pouches and three varieties of applesauce”
… “I had been looking for a while to partner with an early-stage brand in the food space,” Garner tells Living Maxwell.
Ok I read that part wrong and updated it!
Zero shade at this. Healthy options for children of families who qualify for federal assistance? Amazing.
So she wants to be Diane Keaton in Baby Boom? 😀
If she can get a better option into WIC then Kudos. We just had that story about the govt trying to limit what people can buy on these programs. Well she’s trying to come up with a solution.
Right! Notice how different the tone is: “I’d like to be part of making a healthier option a choice for children in families with lower incomes” vs “let’s take it all away because they keep buying the cheap, unhealthy junk.” If Congress proposed giving SNAP recipients the choice to trade in $25 of their monthly benefits for weekly CSA produce boxes, *that* would show any of those asshats actually cared about healthy choices.
Garner’s marketing has been extra cheesy over the past couple years, and even though she’s explicitly acknowledging it here, I can’t help but buy into her “daughter of a daughter of a farmer” shtick. I’m a fan from Alias years, ya know?
I feel like impoverished kids/families in rural America are so often overlooked. =(
Diane Sawyer did an amazing documentary on it a few years ago.
i think she looks her age in her face but her body is amazing
“she could have cashed in with something a little easier like so many other celebrities. She’s not doing this for the money.”
I’m sorry. I’m too skeptical about the reasons why a celebrity might want to start this kind of business. I’ve come to the conclusion that when is done just for the money, IMO is more genuine and at least you get what you see. This? All PR and long game here. If it’s not for the money then is certainly NOT because they want to be socially conscious, give back, whatever crap they sell t us…no. It’s *always* about something else than that.
can it be about PR AND giving back?
Why do interviewers always ask women how they balance? It does not matter if it is a male or female interviewer they still ask that stupid question! And I loved how Jen answered “You don’t.”
I wish someday that the interviewee turns the table on the interviewer and says to them “how do you balance?”
I love her honest answer to, but if they’re going to ask a question, it should be of everyone, not just women.
Or as you said, stop asking stupid question. No one can be everything all the time.
As much as Garner’s personality annoys me, I like this company’s local/organic baby food initiative. Was just reading how Scott Pruitt sided with pesticide lobbyists over EPA scientists to overturn a ban on chlorpyrifos, a pesticide that damages kids’ brains in only very small amounts, and now, because of our new and improved EPA under Pruitt, approx. 30 million pounds of the stuff will be sprayed on U.S. crops over the next five years.
I don’t know why this stuff isn’t widely/heavily covered by major media – I would think people would be outraged. Yet, it’s just silently happening in the background as we all sit back and eat our dirty, contaminated fruits/vegetables.
JOJO…ugh. Why on earth would they let that happen?! Not really asking you, just throwing that out in the universe.
The EPA under Pruitt is slashing all kinds of regulations that protect worker and consumer health/safety – all in the name of profit. What makes me crazy is that there’s 24/7 news coverage of Mueller/Russia but no attention devoted to any of this. They’re also trying to lower requirements for car emissions, so cars can spew higher amounts of toxic crap into the air. We’re totally going backwards with clean air, water and food supply.
Although I’m not a fan of her acting, she does some awesome work on the philanthropic front – save the children- and this initiative is awesome. i side-eyed her comment about going to the gym and working out at a very early time of day —- she is constantly papped coming and going from one of her local gyms and it’s long after the sun is up.
Doing a Paul Newman? I doubt this will take off. Others have tried this and it didn’t work.
Hope the investors don’t get screwed.
She is name dropping Ben.
he is her children´s father and husband/ex-husband
I dont like her, but to name drop the father of your children is okey with me
Okay, I read the whole article and all the comments mostly because I wanted to know what WIC stands for. Still don’t.
WIC stands for Women, Infants, and Children. I believe it provides vouchers for pregnant women and women with young children to buy food. It is pretty specific about what you can buy and is based on the ages of the children. For instance it might cover whole milk until age 2 and then only cover skim milk. It does cover some organic foods, but only for specific foods. We also have a neat program in our city where SNAP dollars (like food stamps but called SNAP in Georgia) are doubled at the local organic farmers market. http://athensfarmersmarket.net/double-snap
Thank you for the answer, and sorry mine is late.
x17 video of them after church at Sam’s baseball game and !3en layinging their picnic blanket and helping Jen steady herselfup a hill. I know they’re “co-parenting”, but if I was their child, I’d be so confused.
What’s confusing about it? They’re friends who share children and so they all get together sometimes. Children aren’t stupid. And divorced people aren’t always unfriendly with each other.
Their children are busy having fun, enjoying their day. I doubt they are even paying attention to their parents… and that is how it should be.
There is a reason why WIC does not have organic foods on most of their approved lists–it’s very expensive and it means there are less food dollars to go around for everyone. I work for WIC here in CA and hopefully Ms. Garner can also offer a solution to the HIGH PRICES.
Also, side-eying her for the fact that she stands to make serious buck off of this if she can pull it off. NOT COOL.
I always remind people that they don’t need to be afraid of making a lot of money. It doesn’t have to destroy your soul. If you don’t need it, you can always give it to someone who does.
Money isn’t dirty or clean by itself . It’s what you do to make it and with it that matters.
I remember reading an interview in the 1970s with an executive with five kids making $150,000 a year, which was a lot back then. He said nobody in his situation needed more than $50,000 a year. He found plenty of charities willing to take the excess.
A friend only discovered after his father’s death how rich the guy was. They had always lived comfortably but not extravagantly, so he assumed they were just middle class income-wise. His dad was a highly paid engineer and was donating a lot of his money to charities because he and his family really didn’t need that much of it.