Latest news with #JonnyPops
Forbes
11-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Immigration Raids Hit Farms And Food Plants, As ICE Targets Agriculture
Farm workers labor in the fields in Kern County, California's breadbasket, on April 9, 2025. Immigration raids this week have been devastating for many to witness, and, amid all the chaos, the expanded ICE enforcement has turned to targeting America's agriculture industry. On Tuesday, dozens of workers were taken from their posts in fields and packing houses across the heart of California's farmland from the San Joaquin Valley to the coasts. Dozens were also taken from a small meatpacking plant in Omaha, Nebraska. And 11 workers were also arrested from a dairy farm in New Mexico. This is a dangerous game that's being played, the impacts of which will ricochet across the food industry. Immigrants power it all, from the farming to the packing and processing to the staffing of most restaurant kitchens. And, to feed everyone, they work some of the most dangerous jobs out there—many jobs that employers say would otherwise go unfilled. Price hikes and shortages are only the start of what shoppers will start to feel. — Chloe Sorvino This is Forbes' Fresh Take newsletter, which every Wednesday brings you the latest on the big ideas changing the future of food. Want to get it in your inbox every week? Sign up here. JONNYPOPS Forbes 30 Under 30 alums Erik Brust and Connor Wray founded JonnyPops while still in college. More than a decade later, they are sitting on a mini empire of 'better-for-you' frozen treats. The highly anticipated listing of JBS on the New York Stock Exchange is set for this Friday. And environmental nonprofit Mighty Earth, which has been fighting to delay the listing for the past two years, filed a last-ditch attempt to stop the listing earlier this week. The letter, sent to Securities and Exchange Commissioners on Sunday, highlights the risk of violating U.S. anti-money laundering laws—particularly because of alleged deforestation in the supply chain of the Brazil-founded company—if the listing goes through. 'JBS's profits represent the proceeds of crime,' the letter reads. 'For the foreseeable future, there is a real risk that profits used to pay dividends to shareholders would also constitute the proceeds of crime, and the NYSE may be held legally accountable for its role in facilitating and concealing JBS's unlawful conduct.' JBS declined to comment. JBS representatives have previously denied allegations of deforestation in the Amazon. Plexi Images/GHI/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Cyberhack: An apparent cyberattack on the distributor to Whole Foods and other health retailers rocked shoppers Monday. United Natural Foods Inc., better known as UNFI, 'proactively' stopped some business and took its systems offline while it investigated the hack. CNN shares that some shoppers reported bare shelves at a few Whole Foods Tariffs: Trump's 50% tariff on imported steel means that canned goods—historically a budget-conscious option in stores—are facing price hikes. And the trade group for Campbell's and Hormel estimates prices in stores could rise up to 15%, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg was among those who attempted to sail to Gaza on a boat organized by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. Starvation In Gaza: An estimated 2 million Palestinians are at risk of famine, and yet global humanitarian aid providers have been shut out from helping what the Associated Press describes as among the deadliest and most destructive conflicts since World War II. A Freedom Flotilla Coalition boat carrying activist Greta Thunberg was turned away from providing aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip this week. Chef Jose Andres' World Central Kitchen has also been unable to resume aid in Gaza. Happy Pride Month! I've been loving reading through John Birdsall's What Is Queer Food, which was published earlier this month. Bon Appetit did a fun Q&A with Birdsall, too. Give it a read! CHLOE SORVINO Summer is for sandwiches! And it was way too enjoyable to slather some freshly made ciabatta with the last of my stash of ramp butter, topped off a little leftover prosciutto and taleggio cheese. Thanks for reading the 146th edition of Forbes Fresh Take! Let me know what you think. Subscribe to Forbes Fresh Take here.
Forbes
10-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
How JonnyPops' $100 Million Popsicle Business Licks The Competition
With flavors like Rainbow Superpower, Very Berry Lemonade and Unicorn, popsicle entrepreneurs Erik Brust and Connor Wray know how to channel their inner Willy Wonka, but their factory in Elk River, Minnesota is strictly for frozen confections. The two Forbes 30 Under 30 listers produce nearly 30 kinds of JonnyPops—made without anything artificial from just five ingredients or less—and in 13 years, their business has quietly become one of the hottest brands in the frozen aisle. JonnyPops are coveted by children, MAHA moms and nostalgic millennials alike, and this summer is primed to be the best yet. 'The energy of the summer is contagious,' says Brust, JonnyPops' 32-year-old CEO. 'This is our Super Bowl—and it just happens to be multiple months long.' Some 60% of JonnyPops' annual sales, which Forbes estimates at $100 million, come during the hottest six months of the year, Brust says. JonnyPops doesn't comment on its financials. But the brand, which Brust shares has been profitable from year one, and now pulls in an estimated 30% net margin, is the top seller among natural grocers' lineup of 'frozen novelties' nationwide, which grocery data provider Spins tracks as nearly $7 billion in annual retail sales. Brust believes that the business he and Wray, JonnyPops' 33-year-old chief financial officer, dreamed up in their dorm room at St. Olaf College, about an hour south of Minneapolis, is built for the long haul. 'We don't chase fads,' he says of the business, which was bootstrapped with friends and family, and has taken on no private equity funding. 'We're thinking about what's the next decade look like. This was never a grow-the-business-to-sell-it type idea.' But if the pair did decide to sell, even as the market for food deals has scaled back multiples amid uncertainty and volatility, JonnyPops could expect to get around $300 million or more. Mainstream ice cream bars like Dove and Klondike have been struggling as consumers opt for healthier brands. Their respective parent companies—Mars and Unilever—need brands like JonnyPops (which has been eating away at their sales) for future growth. That pressure is keeping the market for acquisitions relatively strong. Frozen treats are a fair consolidated industry, with Ferrero (Halo Top, Blue Bunny), Mars (Dove), Unilever (Ben & Jerry's, Talenti) and General Mills (Häagen-Dazs) controlling the majority of the market share. But there is still more room for growth: The $50 billion giant Mars, for example, has been investing in the development of its Dove bar line for the past three years with the goal of growing that business to more than $1 billion in annual sales globally. Brust first met Wray in 2010 in a physics class at St. Olaf. As Brust studied, he couldn't get his mind off an idea he had come up with while talking with his cousin Jonathan, known as Jonny, at a family wedding back in 2007. The two cousins had come up with the idea for a socially responsible business when they both realized they loved ice pops but were having concerns about the ingredients in popular brands. And after Jonny tragically died following a struggle with addiction, Brust and Wray decided to bring Jonny's dream to reality in his honor. They began making frozen smoothies-on-a-stick in their dorm with a blender, strawberries and cream. Their version had less than half the sugar and fat of traditional ice cream pops. For the first two years, the duo ran the business while they finished up college (and started their tradition of donating a portion of profits every year to organizations that support addiction recovery). They started with $4,000 spent (from savings from jobs during high school) on a stainless-steel ice cream machine from Brazil to make popsicles on a countertop and used a wedding banquet center's commercial kitchen during weekdays. On the weekends, they sold popsicles at farmers' markets and other local venues. 'We tried to make methodical investments as opposed to spending a whole bunch of money on a really big swing and hoping it works,' Brust recalls. 'We've been incrementally building year after year after year.' By 2018, JonnyPops were being sold at Kroger, Target, Walmart, Costco and the pair earned a spot on the 30 Under 30 food and drink list. But sales were still small, an estimated $5 million a year. So the duo pivoted from smoothies to making popsicles with no artificial ingredients or high-fructose corn syrup. The rebrand worked. In the five years following that shift, the business hit triple-digit sales growth each year, reaching an estimated $50 million by 2021. (JonnyPops declined to comment on its finances.) 'They were quick to realize that they were making a very, very high-quality product and the way they did that was unique, and so controlling production was essential,' says David Finch, a 59-year-old longtime food industry CEO, who met the then-college students while running a Minnesota-based contract manufacturer and became an advisor, investor and board director. 'You can't do that with a business partner who's trying to figure out how he's going to make money along the way.' As the JonnyPops business grew, they learned how difficult it is to make layered popsicles of different flavors without fillers or gums at scale. They wanted to start from scratch, because the machinery used by bigger competitors hasn't been updated since the 1980s. That's why JonnyPops has 20 patents and trademarks, and why it self-manufactures. Retro Cool: "I remember having these cool, colorful pops when I was younger," says Whole Foods executive Juliana Bandin, "and JonnyPops takes me back to those memories with their flavors.' 'Everyone else is running these really old-style things that make the same widgets,' says Brust. 'We want to be inventive and push the boundaries and do things that have never been done before.' Since opening a larger factory in 2021—the 80,000-square-foot plant in Elk River—Brust now believes the company is set up for many years to come. JonnyPops has exclusive lines with Target and representation at 27,000 stores nationwide from H-E-B and Publix to Wegmans and Whole Foods. 'The brand fills the cup and then some on the nostalgia trend. I remember having these cool, colorful pops when I was younger, and JonnyPops takes me back to those memories with their flavors,' says Juliana Bandin, principal category merchant for frozen at Whole Foods. 'Flavor is the number one driver of purchase for frozen desserts, and when a brand nails that—while also offering products that are eye-catching, fun, and nostalgic—the sales speak for themselves.' But around 60% of grocery stores nationwide have yet to sell one of their popsicles, and that includes going nationwide with Walmart. Brust and Wray believe they can double their footprint but it will be incremental over several years. 'We have every bit of belief that our brand's going to get there, but we want to do it in the right way,' Wray says. 'When we launch with retailers, we want to have the right partnership, the right items going into the right places at the right time, with us beating the drum and having that discipline.' In the meantime, JonnyPops is one of the few brands growing while its category of competitors has faced some contractions in recent years. Sales are up around 3% so far this year, according to NilsenIQ grocery sales data, but for the three years prior, sales have fluctuated between growing 1% and declining 3%. The brand's success has also made it a target. Last summer, GoodPop, a competitor that formulates its popsicles with fruit juice and no added sugar, filed a class action lawsuit for false advertising, alleging that JonnyPops actually contains a lot of sugar and isn't as healthy as the company claims. (JonnyPops, which uses cane sugar, declined to comment on the ongoing litigation.) Otherwise, the trends are promising: More than 50% of JonnyPops' consumers and customers have discovered the product only within the last 18 to 20 months. 'Flavors are great, but more of we want the pops to be these magical experiences—things that people have never seen before,' says Brust. 'We have the mindset that our best product is yet to come.'
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
This Fan-Favorite Frozen Treat Is Finally Back at Costco and Shoppers are Racing to Buy It
Just in time for summer, JonnyPops have made their way back to Costco and fans couldn't be any more excited. We first caught wind of the JonnyPops excitement earlier this year when the brand introduced an exclusive 18-count box of JonnyPops Organic Rainbow Fruit Stacks to Costco warehouses nationwide. Now, as we gear up for the warmer months of the year, the fan-favorite freezer find is back now and better than ever. Introducing JonnyPops Organic Freezer Pops: a fruity selection of vegan popsicles fit for the entire family. Spotted by the always reliable @costcobuys and quickly shared online for our convenience, these summer-ready popsicles have just arrived at Costco in a whopping 48-count bag full of three delicious flavors: Cherry, Fruit Punch and Grape.'Perfect for the beach, pool parties, backyard treats, or just to cool down with on a hot summer day,' @costcobuys writes in their post. 'Even better, they're free from artificial dyes and the Big 9 US Allergens.'That's right, these completely organic and tasty freezer pops are shelf-stable and ready to be frozen once you get home. Simply shake 'em, freeze 'em and enjoy at a later date. There really couldn't be a better way to welcome in the warm temperature of the summer season. Upon purchase, customers can expect to find 16-count of each popsicle flavor included in the bag for the super low price of $9.99. They are expected to be rolling out to Costco warehouses nationwide, so be sure to keep your eyes on the freezer section upon your next visit.'These look so refreshing,' one fan wrote below another comment simply expressing their feelings about the pop with the use of two flame emojis. While we wouldn't suggest any sort of heat being used around this tasty selection of freezer pops, we do agree that things are certainly heating up in terms of summer-ready releases. Here's hoping the arrival of more ice cold, fruity freezer finds continues to ramp up from here.
