Vanessa Pham, co-founder of Omsom, which brings proud, loud Asian flavors to consumers via meal starter kits, will discuss her partnerships with leading chefs and the products on which they collaborate, during the Fancy Food 24/7 session SFA's 12 Under 35 Panel: Innovators Changing Specialty Food, taking place this morning at 11 a.m. EST.
Pham will sit alongside fourth-generation butcher Cara Nicoletti, and Gaiana Joseph, co-founder and director of Fuel the People, who were also named to the 12 Under 35 list.
Following is the story of how Omsom came to be.
Kim, 29, and Vanessa Pham, 27, have tapped the minds of top chefs across multiple Asian cuisines to create a line of meal starter kits that help consumers create cutting-edge dishes at home.
The sisters’ Omsom brand—named after a word meaning “rowdy” or “rambunctious” in Vietnamese—was inspired by their own mother’s home cooking, Kim Pham says.
“Mama Pham is the reason we’re here today,” she says. “Every night, she worked hard to cook a three-course Vietnamese dinner for our family—and for our intergenerational, cross-cultural family, this was her love language to us.”
When the sisters, who had backgrounds in startups and consulting, created their new company, they decided to partner with leading chefs who are experts in their respective cuisines. These “tastemakers” have contributed recipes to the Omsom lineup that Pham says are both traditional and modern.
“Each of these tastemakers have connections to these dishes that run deep, but are also on the cutting edge of what it means to eat modern Thai, Vietnamese, Filipino, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean,” she says.
For example, among the dishes is a Vietnamese Lemongrass BBQ starter kit, created by Jimmy Vo, chef-owner of Vietnamese restaurant Madame Vo in New York City.
Omsom’s product lineup, divided into Southeast Asian and East Asian sections, is available via Omsom’s website, where chef biographies and background information about the dishes that inspired the starter packets can also be found. The site also offers several suggested recipes for each starter packet, which includes spices, sauces, and other specialty ingredients, most of which are sourced from Asia.
Pham says sourcing authentic ingredients is one of the ways the company seeks to operate the business with “cultural integrity.”
“This dedication is key to our mission, but also introduces a lot of logistical complexity—from prolonged timelines to a much more difficult supply chain,” she says. “We can’t imagine building the business any other way, but we definitely chose the more challenging path.”
Related: 12 Under 35: Cara Nicoletti, Co-Founder, CEO, Seemore Meats & Veggies; 12 Under 35: Gaiana and Roodharvens Joseph, Allegra Tomassa and Lorenzo Massaro, Co-Founders, Fuel the People.