Omsom

Key numbers

The product

Omsom makes 'rip-and-pour' pantry starters, sauce packets plus aromatics and spices, and 4-minute saucy noodle kits for dishes like Vietnamese BBQ, Thai krapow, spicy bulgogi, and yuzu misoyaki salmon, each developed with acclaimed Asian chefs who earn royalties on sales. It solves the problem that the American 'ethnic aisle' flattens diverse Asian cuisines into one diluted jar of sauce, offering restaurant-quality results in about 30 minutes with no preservatives or high-fructose corn syrup. Starters sell for roughly $4-6 each online and in Whole Foods, Target, and Sprouts, with bundles covering about 45 meals. The shelf-stable format and bold, brushstroke-inspired packaging differentiate it from both meal kits and legacy sauce jars. The brand's cultural positioning, 'proud and loud' Asian flavors rather than watered-down versions, is as much the product as the food itself.

How they did it

Sisters Vanessa and Kim Pham, daughters of Vietnamese refugees, came up with the idea while hiking in Bolivia in 2018 and spent over a year developing recipes with chefs from Madame Vo, Jeepney, and Fish Cheeks before quitting their jobs in 2019 to bootstrap full-time. They won a $50,000 equity-free grant from the Mars Seeds of Change Accelerator as the only pre-launch company, and launched in May 2020 to national press, selling out 11 times in year one and shipping to all 50 states within two months. Despite early investor skepticism that Asian pantry food was 'niche', they raised pre-seed and seed money from operators like Away's Jen Rubio and Zola's Shan-Lyn Ma, pivoted hard into retail, and reached 2,000+ stores by 2022 with grocery revenue growing 324% YoY by Q1 2024. In 2024 they sold Omsom to NYSE-listed DayDayCook to scale the brand globally, with the sisters staying on in advisory roles.

Why it worked

• Authentic chef-partnered recipes with royalty sharing created real product quality plus authentic storytelling
• Cultural branding ('proud and loud') resonated with Asian-American consumers long ignored by mainstream grocery
• Launched directly into the pandemic home-cooking boom with a 30-minute pantry-shortcut format
• Relentless earned media, 50+ national features in year one, substituted for a large marketing budget