Yes Yum’s sauces are made locally in the Illawarra. Photo: Alana Dimou.
Port Kembla local Emma Williamson started South Coast Kimchi Co six years ago after falling in love with the traditional Korean food kimchi. She started eating it as a way to improve her gut microbiome when she was pregnant, then got enthusiastic about making her own after a deep dive into ‘the school of YouTube’. She realised it was similar to sauerkraut, and pretty soon she was making it for other mums in her parents group and realised there was a market out there for her product.
From giving away jars of kimchi to other mums in a parents group, the kimchi side hustle snowballed into a market stall, which led to stocking jars in businesses around town and now the newly rebranded Yes Yum is a nationally recognised business.
“People are looking for condiments that are better for you and don’t contain any filler or nasties, which is becoming unfortunately common in packaged foods. I’m making something delicious that is actually good for you, and you can use it in so many different ways,” Emma told Region.
South Coast Kimchi Co has rebranded to Yes Yum. Photo: Yes Yum.
Kimchi actually refers to the process of fermenting vegetables in this way, so you can ‘kimchi’ pretty much any kind of vegetable. The most common version of kimchi is made with chilli and wombok and Emma’s popular Classic Kimchi follows this traditional recipe. She also makes a vegan kimchi, which uses kelp and mushroom in place of fish sauce for an umami kick. While some kimchi can be extremely spicy, Emma wanted to make sure her products didn’t scare people off.
“My kimchi isn’t overly hot and I’ve done that on purpose to make it accessible. It’s more about the flavour than bringing too much heat. And traditionally it wouldn’t have been that hot: chilli was only introduced to Korea around 200 years ago and before that the heat would come from mustard greens. It gives people the opportunity to try kimchi without being put off by the spiciness.”
Emma sources local ingredients from as nearby as possible: her ginger, garlic and herbs are all from a local farm and the wombok is Australian grown.
Yes Yum products can be used on all sorts of foods. Photo: Alana Dimou.
Emma is no stranger to the ‘ups and downs of running a small business’, which have added to the difficulties of making and selling a fermented product which requires refrigeration. In order to grow her business, Emma decided to broaden her range of products when she rebranded and has created several shelf stable sauces.
Kimchi Hot Sauce, Kimchi Oyster Dressing and Korean G Sauce now sit alongside the more traditional kimchi jars and a Smoked Kimchi Mayo which is smokey, tangy and damn delish.
The Korean G Sauce is similar to a gochujang-style condiment that you might get with fried chicken, and the hot sauce is a tasty addition to scrambled eggs, or to dash onto your tacos. Despite the name, the oyster dressing is versatile enough to add to a Bloody Mary, use as a salad dressing and, yes, to pop on top of your freshly shucked oysters.
Her goal for the business now is to increase her stockists and expand into food service, offering her products in wholesale bulk for other businesses to serve. Millers Local Bakehouse used her kimchi in their kimchi cheese croissant and that’s just the beginning for this delicious local product.
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