Specialty Food Magazine

PHOTO: DEANIE CHEN Kim Pham and Vanessa Pham CO-FOUNDERS, OMSOM Ages: 29 and 27 PHOTO: PERFECT DAY Perumal Gandhi and Ryan Pandya, CO-FOUNDERS, PERFECT DAY Ages: 30 and 29 22 SPECIALTY FOOD SPECIALTYFOOD.COM Perumal Gandhi and Ryan Pandya have created what they describe as a unique niche in the booming market for animal-free dairy alternatives. Their company, Perfect Day, uses a fermentation process to create the key proteins that give bovine milk its functionality, versatility, and nutrition, in a process that they say puts a lot less stress on the environment. While fermentation has been used to create small amounts of specific enzymes and other food ingredients, Perfect Day is a pioneer in using the process to create dairy proteins, says Pandya, co-founder and CEO. "We see dairy ingredients as an amazing place to start," he says. "The industry already knows dairy ingredients, and is already structured that way." Pandya and Gandhi recognized early on that dairy ingredients were used in a range of common food products, from soup to crackers, and they decided to focus the company's energies on that niche, providing an ingredient that could allow these products to be labeled as free of animal products. "We are now at the forefront of being able to make high-volume, low-cost, extremely pure ingredients using fermentation, which has never really been done before," says Pandya. Perfect Day, named after a Lou Reed song that according to one report puts dairy cows in the mood to produce more milk, has also launched Urgent Company, which seeks to develop environmentally friendly CPG brands. Urgent Company's first product, Brave Robot vegan ice cream, rolled out last year and has enjoyed strong sales, says Pandya. Pandya and Gandhi have attracted significant funding and several high-profile backers, ranging from leading dairy scientists to celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio and business leaders such as Robert Iger, chairman of The Walt Disney Co. Pandya says the company is seeking to partner with companies in the dairy-products industry to help them rethink their product formulations and reduce their impact on the environment. "We approach other companies in the dairy industry with open arms and a spirit of collaboration," he says. —M.H. Kim and Vanessa Pham 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." –M.H. 12 UNDER 35

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