Jessica Biel actually hasn’t been in the headlines much in recent years. At least, she hasn’t been in the headlines in recent years for her acting career or amazing fashion. Biel got some headlines when she closed her (terrible-sounding) “kids restaurant” Au Fudge after two struggling years. She also made waves when we discovered that she’s a full-throttle anti-Vaxxer. And of course, we talked about her when Justin Timberlake cheated on her yet again. Last year, Biel had her second child, a boy they named Phineas. And her new thing is leaning in to the Mommy Industrial Complex – she’s trying her hand at a childhood-wellness brand called Kinderfarms.
Jessica Biel knew she wanted something different when it came to wellness for her family, which includes sons Silas, 6, and Phineas, 11 months, and husband Justin Timberlake, 40. Searching for pain-management for teething babies, Biel, 39, was frustrated by her options in the pharmacy aisle.
“You read the back of these labels and then when you start looking up what some of these things are, it doesn’t fit my values as a mom,” she tells PEOPLE exclusively. The actress and producer connected with Jeremy Adams, a natural products entrepreneur, and the two bonded over being parents “and how hard it was,” she adds.
“We just said, ‘You know what, we can do better than this,'” Biel reveals. “It’s like once you have the information and then you start to research different ingredients, you start to think more about like, ‘Well, I wouldn’t put that in my body. Why would I put it in my kid’s body?'”
Now Biel and Adams, alongside co-founder Greg Willsey, have launched Kinderfarms, a clean and effective health and wellness brand for families.
“It’s creating an option for families who have different value sets,” says the star, “and would like to have some kind of opportunity to make a different choice for their kids.”
The company’s flagship product, Kinderlyte, is a natural, medical-grade hydration that helps with all forms of dehydration without artificial sweeteners, colors, or flavors. Kindersprout, which launches next month, is a plant-based organic protein shake for kids. Kinderfarms will also donate 1% of all sales to support families globally through the 1% For The Planet campaign.
“The most important thing was to create products that I really felt I could stand behind as a mom and as a woman and a wife,” Biel says. “And say to my family and my friends, “I really trust that the ingredients in these products are effective and non-toxic, just cleaner. That’s the priority.”
People are always horrified when I tell the story about how my parents both believed in dipping their finger in brandy and rubbing that finger across my gums when I was teething. That’s a very old-fashioned “remedy” for teething, but I don’t think it would have ever occurred to my parents’ generation to look for pain relievers for a teething baby? I mean, most parents just go with a frozen binky or something like that, right? Basically, this whole thing sounds like something an anti-Vaxxer would come up with, “clean” and “organic” and “non-toxic.” It also sounds like this is just Biel’s latest attempt at a side-hustle, and one which will lose money. I wonder how long this will last? Longer than Au Fudge?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pLHLnpmirJOdxm%2BvzqZmcGpjZ4F1e8meqqyhk5aso7XEpZahmaOUrqC6xLCWrKGUmnqpwdKto56XkaOssL7GmqWim4%2Bssq24zZ6qrJeSp66vsL6fpquXk522rbDRnqVo