Jenny Craig and her husband,
Sidney Craig, founded Jenny Craig, Inc. on 21 March 1983 in
Melbourne,
Australia and began operations in the United States in 1985. The company expanded rapidly after entering the U.S., opening 46 locations by 1987 as well as 114 in other countries. In 1991, the company underwent an
IPO, generating $73.5 million in funding. By 1998 Jenny Craig was operating in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Puerto Rico and the United States. The revenues had fallen from $401 million in 1996 to $352 million. In 2002, Jenny Craig, Inc., was acquired by
MidOcean Partners, a New York and London-based
private equity investment firm, and ACI Capital, a New York–based private investment firm. On 19 June 2006, they announced the signing of a definitive agreement to sell the company to
Nestlé in a transaction valued at approximately $600 million. The company was operated as part of Nestlé Nutrition. In April 2019, H.I.G. Capital acquired the Jenny Craig weight management business from North Castle Partners. In 2008,
YouTube personality
Shane Dawson and approximately six other Jenny Craig employeesincluding his mother and brotherwere fired from their jobs for uploading a sketch to his YouTube channel. In 2013, Dawson wrote a comedy pilot about his experiences there and sold the script to
NBC. In March 2018, the company reportedly pulled its advertisements from
The Ingraham Angle as a result of host
Laura Ingraham's portrayal of
David Hogg. In 2019,
H.I.G. Capital, a global private equity firm, acquired Jenny Craig for an undisclosed amount. In October 2019,
Walgreens announced that it would begin offering Jenny Craig weight loss services at approximately 100 locations beginning in January 2020. On 2 May 2023, Jenny Craig announced to employees via email that the company will wind down operations, lay off all employees, and possibly switch to an e-commerce model. The company had been pursuing a sale for some time. Two days later, on 4 May, the company announced via its official
Facebook page that it was going out of business. On 5 May, Jenny Craig filed for
Chapter 7 bankruptcy. On 9 May, its Australian and New Zealand operations were placed into
voluntary administration. On 7 June 2023, it
ceased all operations in both countries after failing to find a buyer, selling its online capacity to health startup Eucalyptus. The company's intellectual property was sold to Wellful, Inc. (the parent company of
Nutrisystem), who relaunched Jenny Craig as an e-commerce store in fall 2023. ==Diet program and effectiveness==