Legend of the Instant Noodle
In Japan, when one thinks of instant food, one thinks of instant noodles — or, more specifically, “Cup Noodles”, a brand of Nissin Foods and set up by the inventor of instant noodles, Ando Momofuku (1910–2007). Today, Cup Noodles are sold in over 80 countries in the world, satisfying the instant noodle needs for over 100 million people every day — in the process becoming one of the main representative companies of Japan alongside Toyota, Panasonic, and Sony.
Ando Momofuku
Ando, dubbed as “Mr. Noodle” by the New York Times, is renowned for inventing the first ever “instant noodles” in 1958, the “Chicken Ramen”. Ando is revered as a hero in Japan for his ability to think outside the box (or cup in this instance!), and his strong desire to help others in distress. Indeed, Ando’s motivation for investigating instant noodles in the first place was in order to help with hunger issues lingering during the post-war period. He said that the sight of thousands of bone-skinny Japanese people queuing up for noodles every day was engraved into his mind; he wanted to know why this was the case, and how to solve this issue.
Ando was born in 1910 in Japanese Taiwan — at the time under Japanese imperial rule. After being orphaned during childhood, he was inspired by his grandparent’s textile business, and went to study economics at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, finishing his degree in 1934. He then devoted his early 20s to creating businesses such as the textile company Touyou Meriyasu and a company creating parts for spaceship engines. Success was short-lived, however, as the aftermath of World War II saw many of his factories burnt down and his businesses bankrupted.
From Zero to Hero
He famously said “失敗から考えろ” (shippai kara kangaero), meaning “you must think from failure” — this is indeed what he managed with his instant noodle discovery. Motivation to create instant food was driven by widespread hunger during the aftermath of World War II. Seeking affordable, decent food for the working class, Ando started his experiments at his small hut in Osaka.
Ando firmly believed that all you needed was hot water to create successful instant noodles. Ando, getting only 4 hours of sleep and not a single day of rest over the course of a year, relentlessly challenged himself to create the successful instant noodles. And, aged 48, his unwavering belief that the times demanded instant noodles was finally rewarded with the invention of the first ever instant noodles — Chicken Ramen in 1958, dubbed by Japanese television stations and newspapers as “magic ramen”. And, while problems still arose due to lack of portability and slow mass-production of the noodles, after much trial and error and making mini-breakthroughs, instant noodles, as we know them today, were born, with Cup Noodles sales beginning in 1971.
