“From Desperation to Innovation: How Instant Ramen Became a Lifeline in a World on the Edge of Starvation”
Nissin Cup Noodles launched in 1971, and just like Chikin Noodles they were initially seen as a pricey luxury item. Furthermore, their intended function clashed with Japanese culture, which saw eating while walking as rude. But ever the savvy salesman, Ando decided to market Cup Noodles directly to Japan’s novelty-minded youth, setting up public tasting events in Tokyo’s fashionable Giza shopping district. The most successful of these, held on November 21, 1971, succeeded in selling more than 20,000 noodle cups in only four hours.
In a further stroke of genius, the event was held directly across from Japan’s first McDonald’s restaurant, helping to cement in the public’s mind the association between cup noodles and western cosmopolitanism. Building on this momentum, Nissin later introduced cup noodle vending machines – among the first of their kind in Japan – that automatically added water to the cups, making the product even more convenient for people on the go.
And in a dramatic example of there being no such thing as bad publicity, in 1972 Nissin received unexpected national exposure thanks to the Asama Sanso Incident, in which members of the left-wing United Red Army broke into a holiday lodge below Mount Asama and held the wife of the lodge keeper hostage for nine days. News footage of the incident prominently showed police officers eating cup noodles in order to stay warm, further promoting the product as a convenient and delicious meal for busy people.
Cup Noodles proved even more popular than Chikin Noodles, completely surpassing the older product’s sales by 1989. Today, cup noodles outsell packaged noodles in Japan by more than twofold.
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