Kheedim Oh used to carry his mother’s homemade kimchi with him on the Chinatown Bus from Maryland to his home in New York.

“I just couldn't find any high-quality kimchi at the grocery store,” he says. “At that time, I didn't have a car and couldn't afford a taxi, so I would wheel it back to my house on my skateboard.”

It wasn't long before Oh's friends were requesting jars of the homemade kimchi. That's why he figured out how to reverse-engineer and mass-produce his mother's recipe, naming his startup Mama O's after his own mother.

But he didn't stop there. To make it easier for home cooks to ferment their own kimchi, Oh created a ready-to-use kimchi paste that's the first of its kind on the market.

“All the mixing, measuring, juicing, grinding, chopping and shopping are already done in the jar,” he says. “You don't have to go find obscure ingredients or buy large amounts of things.”

Mama O's vegan kimchi paste has a perfect balance of flavors and cuts prep time for kimchi to just 10 minutes. It's also great for marinating meats, seasoning stir-fries or flavoring soups.