Once Upon A Farm Review

Launched in 2015, Once Upon A Farm is a rather unique organic baby food delivery service based in sunny California. It was co-founded by famous movie star and super-mom Jennifer Garner and her 3 friends: John Foraker, who has been in the organic food business for over a decade, Ari Raz, a marketing whiz, and Cassandra Curtis, a mom of 3 girls and a master at product innovation.

This service’s primary goal is to provide parents with an ideal alternative to whipping up good food for their babies in their own kitchen. Made only from the finest organic ingredients and cold-pressed for maximum nutritiousness, this company’s blends are designed to support healthy development in children across the nation, including little ones whose parents have limited financial resources.

In this Once Upon A Farm review, we shine the spotlight on this baby food delivery company that cares. Stick around to find out more about its mission and learn how its organic blends are made, how many delicious flavors there are, and how you can enrich your little one’s menu with these healthy meals that taste and nurture like homemade food.

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How Once Upon A Farm Works

Shopping at Once Upon A Farm is perfectly easy. The first step is browsing the offer divided into sections dedicated to babies, toddlers, and kids. Baby blends are conveniently categorized by food stages 1, 2, and 3, making it easier to find just what your baby needs. For each age, you can find up to a dozen tasty blends in pouches, cups, and bowls.

Once you take a look at the products on offer and find what you think your little one would love, you can decide whether you want to shop with or without a subscription. If you opt for one-time purchases, you can get individual flavors in 8-packs or select variety packs. You can purchase as many products as you like.

Alternatively, you can get a subscription that brings you 24 individual baby meals every 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 weeks, depending on your needs. You get to pick the flavors included in each delivery. Products are added to your subscription box in increments of 3, so you can choose 8 different flavors or opt for 6, 9, 12 or even 24 individual packs of the same flavor. In sum, you get to enjoy great freedom when designing your box, with only 2 rules: adding items in 3-packs and getting no more or fewer than 2 dozen items within your subscription. You can, however, place an order that includes both the 24-pack subscription and extra a la carte items.

The subscription is flexible and you can change your product selection and delivery frequency at any time. Plus, you can cancel whenever you wish. Cancelations and modifications should be made in between subscription cycles (i.e. deliveries) in order to apply to the following shipment.

Apart from the convenient auto-delivery and great customizability, another good reason to choose a subscription is the fact that it can help you save cash with a nice discount and free shipping. We will talk more about this in the Pricing section of our Once Upon A Farm review.

Once Upon A Time baby blends are conveniently categorized by food stages 1, 2, and 3, making it easier to find just what your baby needs. For each age, you can find up to a dozen tasty blends in pouches, cups, and bowls.

What Makes Once Upon A Farm Different

There are more than a few characteristics that make Once Upon A Farm different than many similar services, with one of them being the fact that it was truly built with love. Love for children, food, and the planet. In this part of our Once Upon A Farm review, you can learn about the people behind the service, the farms where the food is grown, the quality of the ingredients, the way the blends are prepared, and more.

The People

Once Upon A Farm has become popular greatly due to the efforts of Jennifer Garner, who is not only a world-famous actress, a social advocate for children, and a mother of 3, but also the co-founder and Chief Brand Officer of this service. Garner’s grandparents have owned a farm in Oklahoma since 1936. It is where Garner’s mother Pat grew up with her 6 siblings, eating fresh produce and selling pecans. When Pat got children of her own, she fed them only fresh food she made herself. This inspired Garner as well as everyone behind Once Upon A Farm to make it possible for all parents in the country to easily provide the same fresh, healthy food for their children.

Together with her 3 friends and co-founders and about 2 dozen other dedicated individuals including Dr. Jill Castle, a registered dietitian and nutritionist, Garner has managed to grow Once Upon A Farm into a baby food brand worth talking about. For the past several years, she has been spreading the word about it through a variety of media outlets. Simultaneously, the products the service offers have become even better thanks to the joint efforts of experts in everything from childhood nutrition to product innovation. Proud of its family, Once Upon A Farm allows you to get to know each and every individual responsible for its success and growth via its official website.

The Farms

The service exclusively cooperates with farms that provide USDA-certified organic, naturally and sustainably grown, and Non-GMO Project Verified produce. Many of these farms are located in California, which enables the company to minimize its environmental impact. However, Once Upon A Farm also cooperates with responsible and hard-working farmers from all over the country and beyond, getting its apples from Washington, avocados from Mexico, and strawberries from Chile.

This sourcing method supports farmers that treat the planet the right way and produce healthy food that you can give to your children worry-free. In summer 2018, the service started preparing the land on Garner’s family farm in Oklahoma with the goal of adding its own organic produce to its blends starting from fall 2019.

The Ingredients

Once Upon A Farm blends contain sustainable, organic, non-GMO fruit, veg, and healthy fats. That is it. No additives, no preservatives, concentrates, added sugar or colors. Only freshly picked produce enriched with good fats coming from the likes of flax seed, coconut oil, and quinoa. Everything that goes into the blends is perfectly natural and, thanks to the help of Dr. Castle, handpicked to optimally suit the needs of little ones. Due to their quality and nutritional value, the blends are also pediatrician-recommended.

The Production Process

During the production process, the ingredients are never heated or modified in any way. They are cold-pressed to ensure that the blends are just as tasty and nutritious as the freshly picked produce they are made of. The use of HPP cold-pressure technology allows for cold pasteurization that makes Once Upon A Farm blends perfectly safe for kids.

Education

Wishing to maintain a personal relationship with its patrons and make it easier for parents to make good nutrition decisions, Once Upon A Farm has launched its own blog called The Fresh Life. You can access the blog via the company’s official website and learn more about making good food for the little ones, dealing with picky eating, the challenges and benefits of breastfeeding, good ways to handle teething or temper tantrums, and much more.

You can further find recipes for Once Upon A Farm blends so you can make them at home and discover interesting novelties and facts about the company, its recyclable, eco-friendly packaging, and its food safety monitoring process. The blog is chock-full of useful information and advice many parents are sure to appreciate.

Supporting Those In Need

Apart from making its blends affordable enough for the majority of parents, Once Upon A Farm has invested extra efforts into making its healthy baby food available to the less fortunate. It is the first fresh baby food company accepted by 2 major special supplemental nutrition programs, including that of the USDA and South Carolina’s Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program.

Through these programs, Once Upon A Farm brings fresh, organic food to low-income families and children who are at nutritional risk. Currently, the service’s products have been approved in the states of Connecticut, Florida, Vermont, and West Virginia. The company is continuously working on getting approval in other states.

Gifts

If you like what you have read so far and want to give someone the gift of fresh, organic baby food, you can purchase Once Upon A Farm gift certificates. The values range from just $20 to $100 and you can get as many certificates as you want at once.

Once Upon A Farm blends contain sustainable, organic, non-GMO fruit, veg, and healthy fats. That is it. No additives, no preservatives, concentrates, added sugar or colors. Only freshly picked produce enriched with good fats coming from the likes of flax seed, coconut oil, and quinoa. Everything that goes into the blends is perfectly natural and, thanks to the help of Dr. Castle, handpicked to optimally suit the needs of little ones.

Meals And Recipes

Throughout the previous section of our Once Upon A Farm review, we have talked about the way the company’s blends are made and what makes them good for your children. Now it is time to discover the range of flavorful options you can choose from when you shop, depending on your little one’s age. Before we start, let us just mention one important fact you should keep in mind when choosing: cups and pouches are made with the addition of healthy fats while bowls contain produce only.

Babies

For babies, Once Upon A Farm has prepared 8 flavors for Stage 1 (5+ months), 10 flavors for Stage 2 (7+ months), and 6 flavors for Stage 3 (9+ months).

For the youngest ones aged at least 5 months, you can choose between delightfully packaged and named Prince Of Prunes, I Carrot Lot, and So Sweet Potato cups, Magic Velvet Mango, The Fairest Of Pears, So Sweet Potato, and Baby Bear Butternut pouches, and Apple Bowl 2-packs. Additionally, you can opt for the Stage 1+ variety pack and the 5+ Month Cups variety pack.

During Stage 2, little ones can enjoy Pineapple Of My Eye, Blueberry Bear, and Straw-Pear-Y Carrot cups, Wild Rumpus Avocado, OhMyMega Veggie!, Mama Bear Blueberry, and Green Kale & Apples pouches, and Pear Carrot Mango, Apple Sweet Potato Blueberry, and Banana Strawberry Beet bowl 2-packs. Variety packs available for this stage include the 7+ Month Cups pack and the 7+ Month pouch pack.

Finally, Stage 3 delights include Squash Bucklin’ Sage, Beauty And The Beet, and Strawberry Beet Basil cups and Sun-Shiny Strawberry Patch, Just Right Oats, and Gold-Y Mango & The 3 Coconuts pouches. There are 2 variety packs for this stage, one including cups and the other featuring pouches.

Toddlers

Toddlers (Stage 4; 12+ months) can enjoy a larger variety of ingredients, including mild spices, but they have fewer blend flavors to choose from. The 3 pouches particularly crafted for this age include Blueberry Pear-Fection, Rasp-Pear-Y Vanilla, and Peter Banana Pumpkin. There is the Toddler variety pack as well that contains Blueberry Pear-Fection and Rasp-Pear-Y Vanilla blends.

Kids

After Stage 4, the little ones can enjoy smoothies that are made the same way as blends for babies and toddlers. These tasty treats are cold-pressed and made with no dairy or added sugar. You can opt for Strawberry Banana Swirl, Berry Berry Quite Contrary, Appley Eating Greens, Coco For Mangoes, and the Smoothie variety pack.

Applesauce For All Ages

At all stages, children can enjoy applesauce available in 3 variations: Straight From The Apple Tree, Apple Blueberry, and Cinnamon Apple. Products are available for purchase in 4-packs, 8-packs, and 8-count variety packs.

Allergen Info

Potential allergens in Once Upon A Farm products include coconut, which is used in several blends. The blends are processed in a facility that handles tree nuts, soy, eggs, and dairy. However, all the equipment is meticulously cleaned after every product to prevent cross-contamination. All ingredients are listed on the company’s official website, along with nutrition facts and allergy warnings, allowing you to make an informed decision prior to ordering.

Heating & Refrigeration Tips

When heating up the company’s blends, you only need 1 bowl and some warm water. Place the unopened container in the bowl with warm water and wait for several minutes before testing the temperature. The company’s containers are not microwave-safe.

Unopened and refrigerated, all the products can be consumed until the enjoy-by date on the packaging. Once opened, they should be kept in a fridge and consumed within 72 hours. Out of the fridge, the company’s products can last for 4 hours. If you are traveling, you can use ice packs to keep them fresh longer. If you want to freeze your blends, you should pop them into your freezer before the enjoy-by date and use them within 24 hours once thawed.

Pricing

One of the great aspects of Once Upon A Farm is that it has perfectly simple and rather budget-friendly pricing. The price per blend exclusively depends on whether you choose to subscribe or order commitment-free.

With one-time purchases, you pay $2.99 per blend. If you subscribe, you get a 10% discount, so the price per blend is $2.69. Therefore, the 24-pack subscription costs $64.56 per delivery.

You can buy cups and pouches online. Bowls can be viewed online, but they are currently only available for purchase at grocery stores, where they should cost $2.58 per 2-pack.

Shipping is always free with the 24-pack subscription and purchases including the 24-pack subscription and one 8-pack. If your order includes the subscription and more than one 8-pack, you pay a $4.95 fee plus $5 for every additional pack. With one-time orders, you pay a $4.95 shipping fee for one 8-pack and an extra $5 fee for every additional 8-pack. The maximum amount you can pay for shipping is $25. Recycling envelopes come free of charge.

Delivery Areas

Currently, Once Upon A Farm ships throughout the continental US. It cannot ship to PO boxes, Alaska, and Hawaii. International shipping is not available at the moment.

Orders placed Monday through Wednesday before 1 PM PST are shipped on Wednesday and should arrive by Thursday if shipped to California addresses or Friday if shipped elsewhere. Orders placed on Wednesday after 1 PM PST, Thursday or Friday are shipped the following Monday and arrive by Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on location. If you place your order on Saturday or Sunday, you can expect it to be shipped the following Tuesday and it should arrive within 1 (California) or 2 business days.

Once Upon A Farm products are also available in stores across the US and Canada. You can find the nearest store that sells the company’s products with the use of the store locator on the official Once Upon A Farm website.

Once Upon A Farm Pros & Cons

To make sure Once Upon A Farm meets all your standards and expectations, it is important to know its biggest advantages and disadvantages. With a short overview of its pros and cons, you can easily decide if Once Upon A Farm is the right meal delivery service for you.

Sample Dishes

With Once Upon A Farm, you get delicious meals prepared by pro chefs at affordable prices. To find out what kinds of delights you will receive in your delivery, we have chosen a couple of sample dishes that accurately represents its offer and can help you decide if it is the right service for you.