2017
A Friendship Begins
Sarah and Ruby meet at their first jobs out of college. Bonding over K-dramas, K-pop, and grocery store runs, they discover a shared love for food and an ambition to one day create something of their own.
2022
The Spark
While traveling often for work, Sarah found herself facing the same hotel breakfasts — sweet convenience foods like muffins and instant oatmeal on one side, and bland “savory” options like powdered eggs and bacon on the other. She thought back to the juk (죽 - Korean rice porridge) her mom made growing up — savory, comforting, and nourishing. Just like oatmeal, juk is a grain-based porridge, but in Korea it’s almost always savory. That contrast sparked a question: if they’re so similar, why is oatmeal only sweet in the U.S.? Out of that in-between came the idea for Gamsa.
2023
Proof of possibility
On Sarah’s first trip to South Korea in 10 years, she saw juk everywhere — from ready-to-eat packs in convenience stores to being served on Korean Air flights. It validated what she felt all along: savory breakfast was already normal in Korea, just missing from the U.S.
2024
From idea to MVP
At Columbia Business School, Sarah began pressure-testing the idea, sharing early samples packed in Ziplock bags. Gamsa soon incorporated, won a pitch competition (for initial funding), and brought prototypes to local Korean churches and community events — building early buzz for a new kind of breakfast.
2025
From soft launch to hard launch
Gamsa first soft launched in March 2025, hand-making product in a New Jersey commercial kitchen as a proof of concept. Later that year, after refining recipes, packaging, and production, the brand marked its hard launch in Fall 2025 — debuting a bold new look and bringing savory breakfast to more tables.
감사합니다! (Thank you!)
A note from Sarah
Like many Korean Americans, I grew up between two breakfast tables. On one side was juk (죽 - Korean rice porridge), warm and savory, the food my mom would make when I was sick or needed comfort. On the other was oatmeal — quick, convenient, and everywhere in American mornings. To me, they were never opposites. They were both porridge, just with different grains, each holding its own kind of comfort.
Gamsa was born from that in-between space — from the mornings I craved something nourishing but didn’t have time to cook rice porridge from scratch. From the realization that breakfast in the U.S. is overwhelmingly sweet, leaving little room for the savory, grounding flavors I grew up with. From wanting to build something that felt Korean American — not fully one or the other, but both at once.
Our first product, savory oatmeal, blends oats, quinoa, and rice with sesame, garlic, miso, and seaweed. It’s a bowl that tastes like home, but also like possibility — a reminder that food doesn’t have to fit neatly into one category to belong. Gamsa is built from that spirit of gratitude: for the flavors we inherit, for the comfort food brings, and for the chance to create something new while staying rooted in where we come from.
This is just the beginning. We’re here to make breakfast better — for Korean Americans, for children of immigrants, and for anyone who’s ever wanted a savory start to their day.
With Gratitude,
Sarah
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