Hello, and welcome back to Inc.'s 1 Smart Business Story. Edible Arrangements is betting big on reinvention. CEO Somia Farid Silber, 32, took over her father's fruit bouquet empire in 2024 and immediately shook things up: closing 200 stores, acquiring a Mediterranean restaurant chain, and launching a THC marketplace called Edibles.com. 

The company that once grossed $600 million now hovers around $500 million, but Silber sees opportunity in transforming tired storefronts into "7-Elevens for the little treat economy" with smoothies, cookies, and chocolate-dipped strawberries. She's eyeing an exit within five years—whether through IPO or sale—while juggling three wildly different businesses. Silber’s challenge will be to prove that the brand can command the premium multiples that franchises like Nothing Bundt Cakes and Jersey Mike's have secured.

In this story you'll find:

BY JENNIFER CONRAD, SENIOR WRITER

Edible Brands CEO Somia Farid Silber opens up about her plan to modernize and expand her father’s creation, from cannabis products to smoothies.

On the Netflix limited series Sirens, Meghann Fahy’s hot-mess protagonist, Devon, spends a significant portion of the first episode lugging around a massive Edible Arrangement. The basket, filled with cut cantaloupe, strawberries, and other fruit arranged in a floral bouquet, is a sympathy gift from her estranged sister after she shares the news of their father’s early-onset dementia. While searching for her sister, Devon schleps around the enormous fruit basket, which grows increasingly disheveled. 

“That’s a $200 arrangement,” says Somia Farid Silber, CEO of Edible Brands. “To have Meghann Fahy carrying that around for the first 20 minutes of the show was so exciting.” (Never mind that a character refers to it as “hot garbage.”)  She laughs now at her company’s luck. “It just shows you that we are truly a household name,” Silber says. While Edible Arrangements wasn’t involved with getting the basket placed on the show, the brand received prominent airtime—and the “hot garbage” bouquet came up in multiple recaps and interviews about the premiere. 

Silber and Edible Brands, the Atlanta-based parent company of Edible Arrangements, leaned into the moment: The company arranged for Fahy to make a fruit bouquet at a New York City store during a promotional interview with The New York Times. “I dragged that arrangement around for weeks,” Fahy told the reporter.

Edible Arrangements even updated the listing for the bouquet, the “Delicious Party,” to read: “After a dramatic streaming debut, this piece of ‘Hot Garbage’ is making waves. With unexpected star power and serious main-character energy, this fruit-filled centerpiece is ready for its close-up.” 

It was a savvy move by Silber, 32, who became CEO of Edible Brands in October 2024, succeeding her father, Tariq Farid, the company’s founder, who moved into the role of chairman. Now, her challenge will be to continue to find a market for a novelty product that’s beloved by some, even if it’s never been “cool,” and to make the company relevant to a younger generation. 

Silber is pursuing several revitalization initiatives. In recent years, the company has closed nearly 200 Edible Arrangements franchises and is revamping existing stores with new products and a more modern design. “Sometimes you have to take a few steps back before you can move forward,” she tells Inc., “especially when you’re in the middle of a brand that’s going through a big turnaround.” 

Edible Brands expanded in 2025 by acquiring the Mediterranean fast-casual chain Roti out of bankruptcy and launching a hemp-derived THC marketplace, Edibles.com. As CEO, Silber will have to manage three very different businesses while also overseeing the health of the parent company, which comprises eight entities, including the three consumer-facing brands and B2B logistics and IT services that support them. But first, she needs to secure Edible Arrangements’ place in a changing Main Street, one that’s very different from the world it began in. 

Overall, Edible Brands says it brings in close to $500 million in annual revenue most years. The company declined to provide a breakdown of how much each line of business contributes to the bottom line but said that Edible Arrangements contributes the majority of its revenue. In 2023, Edible Brands brought in $40 million in revenue from the Edible Arrangements franchises, according to the company’s Franchise Disclosure Document, which franchise owners are required to file with the Federal Trade Commission.  

Asked where she sees the brand going, Silber provides a refreshingly direct response: She’d like to see some sort of exit within the next five years, whether through an IPO or the sale of at least one of its brands. “We’re thinking really big about the future and where we want to be,” she says.

Edible Brands has been defying the odds for nearly 30 years. The company’s founder, Tariq Farid, 56, emigrated from Pakistan to the United States as a child and, after operating a flower shop and an IT business, opened the first Edible Arrangements store in East Haven, Connecticut, in 1999.

By 2001, there were two Edible Arrangement locations, generating just over $1 million in revenue, and Farid began franchising his business. In an article in the September 2002 issue of Inc., Farid said he wanted to build “the Domino’s of edible fruit bouquets.” The experts assembled to assess the business were fairly skeptical about its prospects but gave Farid points for creativity. “I don’t envision it as a nationwide franchise,” one said. Another said, “I suspect the market is somewhat modest.” 

Farid was happy for the exposure and particularly taken with the headline on one caption: “Fruit Loopy.” “You want it to be fruit loopy,” he recently told Inc. “You want something different.”

Despite the doubters, Edible Arrangements did grow into a nationwide franchise. In 2006, it ranked No. 4 on the Inc. 500 (which expanded to the Inc. 5000 the following year). But the trajectory wasn’t always straight upward. During the 2008 financial crisis, 40 of the company’s franchises closed. Over the years, it has faced lawsuits, which have since been resolved, related to policy and mandate changes requiring the purchase of new equipment directly from the company. 

Read the rest of the story here.