We promised you the story. Here it is in full, with honesty and a little tenderness. Pineapple wasn’t just our company–it was also the culmination of years of creative labor, relationships, and love. And fittingly, it all began with bringing people together around a table.
Pineapple started in 2015 as a potluck at Ariel’s house. That’s not a metaphor! It was actually a potluck. That gathering grew into a seven-figure company, a beloved community of 100,000+, and a lifestyle brand celebrating how women express their style, identity, and values through food. Tens of thousands of people found Pineapple through our events, recipes, and content series like The Pantry. Even through the pandemic, Pineapple thrived, and from the outside, things looked strong.
But by 2021, we were stretched past our limits. Ariel was co-leading the company while navigating profound grief after the sudden loss of her best friend. Atara was in early pregnancy, ill, and trying to fundraise while her body needed rest. Our partnership, once creative and collaborative, was strained by exhaustion and scarcity.
When an unexpected acquisition opportunity appeared via a connection from a community member, it seemed like the best way forward. The buyer was Fresh N Lean, and the deal closed in February 2023. After multiple conversations, we honestly believed they shared our vision, values, and mission, and that the company had the resources and infrastructure Pineapple needed to grow. But it turned out different than we had hoped for. Shortly after the deal was done, payments to vendors, partners, and our own team started to stall. Eventually, the two of us left the company and from there, communications from the remaining team slowed and then literally stopped entirely. Months later, we heard through a former employee that Fresh N Lean had filed for bankruptcy, and that Pineapple Collaborative (as one of its assets) was tied up in those proceedings. We were stunned.
We spent years searching for answers, talking to different lawyers, creditors and investors. Who owns Pineapple now? Was there any path to recovering what we’d built and could anything be salvaged? We got very few answers. At some point, we had to accept the reality: Pineapple was gone.
Almost ten years of work — the writing, photography, design, partnerships and products that existed across multiple online platforms and in real life — became inaccessible almost overnight. Watching that disappear was disorienting in a way we still struggle to fully explain because losing a business is a strange kind of grief. People don’t talk about it much, perhaps because it’s messy and uncomfortable and doesn’t fit neatly into other loss narratives.
When we sold the company, we genuinely assumed that not only would the Pineapple brand live on, but that it would even grow and take on new life. So, what hurt the most was the loss of identity, community, creative expression, and a shared culture we’d cultivated with you. Plus, we weren’t the only ones who lost something. The investors who believed in us, many of them friends and community members, lost their investment, and that weighs on us still.
Nevertheless, well after Pineapple “disappeared,” people kept talking about it. Former readers reached out looking for old recipes, forwarded newsletters to friends, and sent us photos of Pineapple products they were still rationing in their pantries years later. Others shared memories of events they’d attended or told us how much being part of the community had meant to them. Everywhere we went, someone seemed to ask if Pineapple would ever return. Over time, we realized something important: Pineapple was missed — not just by us, but also by you — and nothing had quite fully filled the void.
Meanwhile, the years away changed us deeply on a personal level. We became less interested in growth at all costs and more interested in creating lives that felt sooo good to live. We became more in touch with our bodies, homes, spiritual communities, friendships, art practices and the earth. As co-founders, we were able to reconcile and return to each other with so much gratitude. And ironically, stepping away clarified what Pineapple had been all along. It wasn’t just a food company, but a worldview and a way of moving through life with appetite, beauty, curiosity, pleasure, connection, and intention.
That’s why we built Pree — not as a continuation of Pineapple, but a new home for our love for food, the earth, and living our juiciest dreams. We can’t wait for all the abundance in store. If Pineapple ever meant something to you, we’d love to have you here as a Founding Member.
With love, 💛 Ariel + Atara
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Full access to every newsletter and issue of The Pantry
An exclusive community chat on Substack
The ability to comment on posts
The joy of knowing you supported our community-supported media from day one