Oh My Goodness! A business baked with purpose and passion
30 Aug 20257 min read
Summary
- Oh My Goodness! was founded in Singapore in 2017 to produce gluten-free, dairy-free, refined-sugar-free baked goods within a certified facility while maintaining strict food-safety and clean-label standards.
- The company highlights challenges such as steep increases in raw-ingredient costs (between 35 %-75 %), global supply disruptions and the high logistics and infrastructure burden faced by small manufacturers in accessing temperature-controlled warehousing and efficient last-mile delivery.
- To scale smartly, Oh My Goodness! is evaluating relocating production to Malaysia to halve overheads, gain better export connectivity and build a facility with sustainability features, while staying true to its founding values of inclusive hiring, product integrity and mission-driven growth.
In the center of Singapore’s food innovation scene, Oh My Goodness! has positioned itself as a purpose-driven company producing gluten-free, dairy-free, and refined sugar-free baked goods. Founded by Ramya Ragupathi in 2017, the company has grown into a fully certified operation, recognized for its ISO 22000-compliant food safety standards, Halal certification by Singapore’s Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura (MUIS), and adherence to gluten-free production protocols. It continues to balance quality, operational discipline, and inclusive employment.
In a virtual interview with Value Chain Asia, Ramya offered a candid look at what it takes to build and sustain a purpose-driven business, in a complex, cost-sensitive industry.
A manufacturing company with a mission
Ramya Ragupathi built a strong foundation in the fields of marketing and communications before being on entrepreneurship. Her career began at Grayling where she spent three years in public relations, before moving to Ogilvy for a year in 360° marketing. Then, she later went to in-house roles like Corporate Communications at DHL.
In her effort to explore new opportunities, she pursued an MBA program at INSEAD, one of the world’s top business schools. Her goal wasn’t to start a business but to gain a deeper understanding of what else is out there.
She launched a marketing communications consultancy registered in Singapore while she was in London after completing her MBA to support herself while exploring a new career path.
During this period of changes, Ramya was also navigating a life on the other side of the world— then she eventually decided to incorporate Oh My Goodness! in Singapore.
Oh My Goodness! operates from a dedicated gluten-free, Halal, and ISO22000-certified facility in Singapore. The product line focuses on baked goods designed for consumers seeking clean label alternatives without compromising on taste and texture.
All product offerings are made with minimally processed ingredients and are free from gums, yeast, preservatives and artificial additives; or what the brand describes as “no gums, no yeast, no preservatives, no nasties”
However, while that builds trust with the quality of the product, it also exposes the business to external shocks. Ragupathi cited supply chain disruptions linked to U.S. factory shutdowns during the pandemic, for example, global harvest failures at different times over the last decade, and geopolitical events like the Ukraine war, which led to surging prices of ingredients such as raspberries.
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"If we were using synthetic ingredients, we wouldn't be affected," she noted.
Over the last two years, she estimates that raw ingredients costs have increased between 35% to 75% . That squeeze affects everyone across the supply chain including consumers.
Oh My Goodness! also operates under a mission: to make “free-from” products available and accessible while uplifting marginalized communities through inclusive hiring.
Its production team includes hiring ex-offenders, single mothers, and persons with intellectual disabilities. However, Ragupathi stressed that this was not a marketing strategy.
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"We don't make a big song and dance about it. You'll only find two lines on the packaging that say, 'Made for you by a disadvantaged person / packed for you by a person with a disability.' That's it," she said.
Sales channels: What worked, what didn’t
When the business launched, its main sales channels were direct-to-consumer e-commerce. In 2020, at the peak of the pandemic, there was a temporary boom on sales; customers flooded the site and the sales skyrocketed.
However, consumer behavior changed when the lockdowns eased. People became more budget conscious. At the same time, logistics costs soared. According to Ragupathi, door-to-door delivery used to cost $9-12 SGD but now it starts at $14-15 SGD. Moreover, for businesses selling perishable products, it requires temperature-controlled storage and delivery.
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“We like to work with the many great logistics startups right here. But we can’t work with them simply because they don't have any temperature control logistics.”
Experiments with supermarket placement also proved unsustainable. “The supermarket model is broken.” she said. If sales don’t impress in the first six months, products would be removed and the investment would be lost.
According to her, small brands cannot afford that gamble, especially if they are also absorbing high logistics costs or dealing with distributors that take 20% cuts.
Today, Oh My Goodness! focuses exclusively on Redmart, one of Singapore's leading online grocery platforms.
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"It targets our audience really well. But even that comes with changes we have to keep adapting to."
The next chapter of “creating goodness”
After eight years of operations, Oh My Goodness! continues to face infrastructure and logistics challenges common to micro-manufacturers. Ragupathi points to a structural imbalance in how ecosystems support large versus small enterprises.
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“The world is designed for big companies or big corporations. It’s not designed for micro SMEs… but I think people are starting to realize that 99% of the world is made up of SMEs, not the big ones. I think it has gotten better but I hope the world will shift to be more flexible and amenable to the more dynamic needs of micro SMEs. Because it really is the micro SMEs that are changing the world.”
Even now, launching in Malaysia has been a two year effort because there are no warehouses that are set up to serve small batch temperature-sensitive products. According to Ragupathi, “there is not a warehouse that can pick and pack for companies like ours. They are so used to working with big companies.”
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“We are trying to break the old models, legacy models, to bring better quality products to the market. We are trying to disrupt, we are trying to bring things more efficiently to customers but sometimes the simple cost of operating takes away the opportunity to be disruptive,” she notes.
Scaling smart
Yet, despite the odds, Oh My Goodness! continues to flourish. To improve cost efficiency and regional access, Ragupathi is preparing for a possible relocation of its production facility to Malaysia.
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"We haven't moved our production yet, but it's on the cards," she said.
While the current factory remains in Singapore, the operational advantages of Malaysia are clear. Operating out of Malaysia costs about half as much as from Singapore. On top of that, Malaysia’s industrial zones are built close to ports, offering strong connectivity to other markets.
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"Singapore has more free trade agreements, yes—but our overheads drop by 50-60% if we move."
In addition to lower labor and logistics costs, Malaysia also offers export connectivity through port-adjacent industrial zones. According to Ragupathi, approximately 60-70% of the company’s ingredients are already available in Malaysia, and several of their suppliers already have regional operations in place.
However, licensing and regulatory challenges locally have been a significant consideration. "In Malaysia, you need many licenses just to do one thing. We want to do it properly-with more funds, a business development partner, and a full plan in place,” she noted.
Plans for the future facility also include sustainability features, which are currently not feasible in the company’s shared unit in Singapore. “I’m hoping we can bring more green philosophy and have more environmentally friendly practices. So there’s that three things, selling what you would actually eat, financial sustainability, and practicing green thinking more.”
Lastly, the company’s guiding philosophy remains the same: never sell anything they wouldn’t eat themselves.
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"I am a customer of my own business," she said. "When I travel, I bring our bread rolls with me. So I'm not going to sell food I wouldn't eat."
The recipe to creating goodness
Ramya Ragupathi’s journey is a reminder that entrepreneurship is very much alive, even in the most competitive of industries. For small businesses, disruptions in the global food supply chain like rising costs of imported ingredients to the lack of accessible, temperature-controlled warehousing and last-mile delivery, pose serious obstacles for growth and sustainability.
Despite that, what sets Oh My Goodness! apart from the others is its refusal to compromise its core values. It hires inclusively, bakes responsibly, and it sells only what they would eat themselves.
The future of the food supply chain may not rely on big companies or sprawling ones; but in small yet values led enterprises willing to change or even break the old models. Just like how Ragupathi puts it, “We’re trying to disrupt,” and in doing so, she’s proving that goodness can be a competitive edge.