As first-gen Vietnamese Americans + daughters of refugees, Vanessa + I quit our jobs 5 years ago on a mission - to reclaim + celebrate the multitudes in Asian flavors + stories.
That sentence led us to taking the leap into entrepreneurship. We made a bet that an Asian American renaissance was upon us - and that Asian Americans deserved a brand that would proudly + loudly reclaim our voice.
We had no idea that this bet would birth the bold + unapologetic Omsom universe:
🔥 10+ damn delicious Asian pantry staples
👋🏽 4.6M+ products sold
🙌🏽 200k+ strong in our community
🗞️ 20B+ press impressions
💰 $100k+ paid in royalties to our Asian chef partners
📺 10+ national TV appearances
In all honesty though, Omsom achieved more than I could have ever imagined on the first day we launched. I am so deeply proud + grateful for all that our incredible team has accomplished over the years – and the wildly thoughtful community we have found as a result of our work.
It is that very gratitude + our values that Vanessa and I centered in making this big decision: we’re so excited to announce today that Omsom has been acquired by DayDayCook, a leader in Asian food brands + a fellow Asian woman-run business 🙌🏽
Typically, mergers & acquisitions decisions are made in the dark, and then gussied up + sanitized for the public. That’s never been our way of being, so here’s the story:
OMSOM’S PROUD + LOUD LEGACY
Omsom was born from our identities as first-gen Vietnamese-Americans and daughters of refugees. ⅓ of the US is now composed of immigrants and their children - and in particular, Asian communities are the fastest growing group with the largest growing buying power.
Vanessa + I saw this as a reflection of something bigger - that Asian Americans are actively changing not just the American palate, but also the national culture.
Omsom was born in May 2020 (launching in the pandemic was fun 🙃), and we’ve seen the power of proud + loud in a multitude of ways:
🔥 Our beloved products are now sold in 2k+ stores and were named “one of the best cooking products we’ve ever tested” by CNN
✊🏽 Our tireless championing of MSG over the years led to Whole30 removing MSG from their “Restricted” list (in fact: we released the first ever product to proudly boast MSG as an ingredient)
🛒 We have meaningfully pushed forward the conversation around the inequity of the “ethnic” aisle
👑 We worked with Disney to usher in their first ever Southeast Asian princess
💪🏽 Our bold content continues to celebrate the multitudes in Asian American identity (The fetishization of Asian women, the erasure of veganism’s Asian roots, “No, Asian food does not have to be 'cheap',” etc.)
👋🏽 We have shown the world what it’s like to run a proudly WOC- and LGBTQIA-led brand
🏦 We weathered the country’s second largest bank failure with grace + transparency
Omsom has always been a culture-driven brand first, before a product-driven brand - and I’m damn proud of the space that we’ve held + made for Asian Americana.
REAL TALK THOUGH…
Two things can be true at the same time: we have achieved more than my wildest dreams AND Omsom is not immune to heavy business constraints.
🐢 Expensive + slow product innovation
Saucy Noodles took 1+ year to launch - and unfortunately, time is money in startups. To keep growing as a brand, we need to release premium Asian products faster - a tough task for our small + under resourced team.
💰 Uncertainty in funding
It has been so exhausting for our team to ride the volatility of the CPG funding market. As a values-first brand, we want to get off the venture capital treadmill + take back agency over how we grow.
🛒 Retail expansion roadblocks
Entering new stores requires you to pay expensive retailer fees, as well as fund in-store marketing. In the last year, we have had to turn down multiple retail opportunities because it is so costly for a small brand like ours.
Our ambition requires resources - so we started to seriously consider an acquisition to get our team the support we need to keep growing 🚀
IT ALL STARTED WITH A DM
We have long been following Norma Chu, founder of DayDayCook - we felt seen by her vision of building the “General Mills of Asian food” and her approach to backing culture-led food companies 🗺️
As you know, we’re never afraid to take moonshots - so Vanessa sent Norma a cold LinkedIn message to see if she would be interested in having a chat. We crossed our fingers – and surprisingly, she got back to us 😱
Vanessa was actually in Colorado at the time, so she hopped on the first flight back to NYC for the meeting with Norma - which, funnily enough, happened at a Pret A Manger in Tribeca!
Thus started a months-long process of DayDayCook and Omsom getting to know one another's leadership, business models, and culture. This include multiple rounds of legal, financial, and business due diligence - imagine having to round up every single contract you have ever signed in the last 4 years and dig into 100+ financial questions 😅
No one talks about how challenging this process is - just how much hard work, urgency, and time pressure goes into M&A. It was deeply stressful, but after lots of late nights, soul-searching, and negotiation, we finally arrived at terms we could all agree on - and thus, an acquisition was born!
A DAMN DELICIOUS FUTURE WITH DAYDAYCOOK
What we held onto throughout this entire process is Omsom’s future - we know we can become a household name with the right resources + partners. Not only is DayDayCook also Asian woman-run, but they have a heavily networked, in-house innovation team - and we’re so excited to craft more damn delicious products together!
Here’s what you can expect in this next chapter:
👋🏽 Omsom will operate as an independent entity within DDC
🍳 More premium Asian pantry staples to come!
🛒 More doors + retail stores
“IF YOU WANT TO GO FAST, GO BY YOURSELF. IF YOU WANT TO GO FAR, GO WITH OTHERS.”
Going through an acquisition this early on in our journey is atypical, but we see it as a reflection of centering Asian American abundance - a difficult, but worthwhile task. DayDayCook has built a portfolio of fellow Asian-owned brands that we admire (and who you may have already seen in your grocery store): Nona Lim and Yai’s Thai 🛒
Joining forces with DayDayCook unlocks innovation, expertise, + scale for Omsom in a way we could not have done on our own - and we’re so excited for what’s to come.
Here’s to proud + loud – into our next chapter!
