A trio of young, female entrepreneurs who launched businesses during the pandemic and were named to the Specialty Food Association’s 12 Under 35: Breakout Talent to Watch list, shared their unique perspectives during a Fancy Food 24/7 panel, Thursday.
Vanessa Pham, 27, along with her sister Kim launched “proud, loud” Asian food brand Omsom in 2020.
“We craft starters which are pantry shortcuts that allow you to create Asian restaurant meals at home in 20 minutes,” she explained.
The company's seven add-your-own protein and vegetables meal starter kits were created with iconic Asian chefs with all of the ingredients sourced from their respective countries of origin. Omsom means “rowdy” or “rambunctious” in Vietnamese.
“We named it that to give a bit of a middle finger to the stereotype that Asian Americans are docile or submissive,” said Pham. “We aim to embody this rowdy energy and for our flavors to be unrestrained and undiluted.”
The brand was on track to launch in April 2020, about a month after stay-at-home orders took effect due to COVID. The sisters were faced with an agonizing decision.
“We had investors and mentors saying ‘shut it down and preserve cash and wait it out,’ but we had been working on this for over a year. Ultimately, we recentered around our goal to bring a sense of home and community. We said ‘let’s launch and bring people a little joy and some good food.”
Their decision paid off in a big way at a time when “people ended up cooking from home and doing things like growing scallions on their windowsill,” said Pham.
Fourth-generation butcher Cara Nicoletti, 35, founder and CEO of Seemore Meats & Veggies, maker of sausages in fun flavors that contain humane certified meats and 35 percent fresh vegetables, runs an all-women staff of eight. She got the idea for the business after being dismayed by all the wasteful meat fabrication she witnessed while working in restaurants.
“Growing up, it was drilled into my head not to waste anything, so I tried to figure out ways to eat meat more sustainably,” Nicoletti said. “I was serving up beautiful grassfed- and pasture-raised meat, but I couldn’t keep up with demand.”
After considering resorting to commodity meat, she instead decided to add fresh vegetables to sausage casings to emulate meals like chicken parmesan, with roasted tomatoes, toasted breadcrumbs, cheese, basil, and humanely raised chicken.
In February, 2020, Seemore Meats & Veggies launched. It’s Chicken Parm Sausage is its most popular product, followed by Bubbe’s Chicken Soup Sausage, and Loaded Baked Potato Sausage.
“Our labels are totally clean and we do everything we can to commit to environmental wellness,” she said.
While Nicoletti had already established a launch partnership with Whole Foods, which placed its product in 205 stores in four regions, its playbook for expanding distribution to other retailers went out the window when the pandemic took hold and distributors stopped taking on new business.
“Instead of trying to find a ton of anchor partners, we built out a network of strong independent retailers and distributed ourselves,” she said.
Gaiana Joseph is the 26-year old co-founder and director of Fuel the People which secures funds through donations which are brought to BIPOC-owned restaurants to feed protesters, voters, and the food insecure.
She, along with her brother, Roodharvens Joseph, her friend Allegra Tomassa, and Allegra’s brother Lorenzo Massaro, launched Fuel the People in New York and Washington D.C., during the height of social unrest shortly after the murder of George Floyd by police.
“I love to cook and I thought ‘how about I make food for protesters?’” she said. After raising funds, her and her cofounders decided that their respective communities would be better served by enlisting help from BIPOC-owned restaurants.
“Not only do black lives matter, but black prosperity matters,” Joseph said. “It’s not just about fighting for our lives, but the quality of black lives as well.”
Their efforts were fruitful on a number of fronts.
“With all the restaurants suffering during COVID we were able to fuel love and a bridge between the community that we’re fighting for and the people that we’re fighting for.”
Restaurants fueled locals with delicious meals, and protestors, in turn, supported them in a big way.
After creating Po’ Boy sandwiches for protestors, Seasoned Vegan sold out of them for the next two days, with lines going out the door, Joseph said.
Fuel the People is now focused on highlighting food insecurity in New York and D.C. and helping secure employment for indivudals who were previously incarcerated.
The women shared unique perspectives on being young, female, business founders.
Although she feels uniquely prepared, having grown up in the male-dominated meat industry as part of her family’s business, Nicoletti faces gender-related roadblocks, especially when trying to secure funds.
“I’ve had to work extremely hard to get people to take me seriously,” she said. “I see men who are making similar products but not as well, with significantly less experience, and they seem to get investment much more easily than I do. It’s extremely frustrating but it’s made me more determined, more scrappy, and ultimately makes the products better.”
Pham, the Southeast Asian American daughter of Vietnamese refugees, likewise feels she has to scale hurdles to be taken seriously. While pinching pennies to make rent, she tried to portray to potential investors that she wasn't depending on their money.
“I had to reframe my mindset and come from a place of abundance since that’s what they’d feel excited by,” she said.
Joseph said she considers her black womanhood to be her superpower.
“When I don’t see someone who looks like me I see it as an opportunity to have a seat at that table,” she said. “It can be difficult when you’re told ‘no,’ especially since I’m so passionate about the work that I do, but I end up getting what I want regardless.”
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