The Snack We Wanted for Our Own Family

Kids want a snack that feels fun. Parents want something made with real ingredients. And nobody wants snack time to turn into a negotiation.

As parents ourselves, Han and I know that equation well. It became part of the reason we built OHME!: to create the kind of snack kids get excited about and parents feel good about saying yes to.

It Started With a Bored Breakfast

During the pandemic, taking care of ourselves had slipped to the bottom of the list. I wanted to make a few manageable changes, so I started eating more oatmeal, yogurt, and fruit.

It was good. It was also getting very repetitive.

Han remembered eating freeze-dried fruit as a child: the big flavour, the light texture, and that unexpectedly satisfying crunch. We bought a freeze-dryer and began experimenting at home, first with breakfast toppings and eventually with snacks.

What began as a personal project grew into OHME!, with a purpose that still guides us today: to make eating well easier to love.

We believe that real food should not need a lecture, it should be something kids genuinely want to eat.

The Good

The best part has always been seeing people try OHME! for the first time and watching that little moment of surprise: “Wait…this is actually really good.”

We have watched a tiny kitchen experiment grow into a Canadian snack brand carried by retailers across the country, including Whole Foods Canada, Costco.ca, London Drugs, Save-on-Foods and more. Even more meaningful is seeing families return for another bag because the products work in their real lives, that is at breakfast, after school, on the road, or wherever the snack emergency happens next.

Building a Company and Raising a Family

Building a food company while raising a family is not particularly tidy.

There have been long nights, unpredictable farmers’ markets, production challenges, and plenty of moments when Han and I were learning something for the first time while also needing to make a decision about it.

In our first year at markets, a $500 day felt fantastic. Other days, we made nothing. We kept showing up, testing locations, listening to customers, and learning which ideas deserved another try.

We built this company together with our son, Aidan, who genuinely love watching us building from the ground up. He serves customers OHME! samples at markets and tradeshows, and is our first product tester before anything hits the market.

The Ugly

The polished story is that OHME! grew from a farmers’ market into hundreds of stores.

The real story includes zero-dollar market days, packaging I designed myself in Canva, a brand name that confused people, tight cash flow, expensive production runs, inventory surprises, and mistakes made very much in public.

Growth can look exciting from the outside while feeling incredibly uncertain behind the scenes. But every wrong turn taught us something, and every small win gave us enough confidence to take the next step.

Why We Keep Going

We want to help build a world where the snacks kids ask for can be the same ones parents are happy to pack.

That means real ingredients, plenty of flavour, a seriously satisfying crunch, and enough personality to make snack time worth looking forward to.

If OHME! disappears from the lunchbox before it comes home, we’ll take that as a pretty good review.