Product type | Instant noodle snack food |
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Owner | Unilever |
Produced by | Croespenmaen, near Crumlin, Caerphilly, Wales |
Introduced | 1977 |
Previous owners | Golden Wonder |
Pot Noodle is a brand of instant noodle snack foods, available in a selection of flavours and varieties.
This dehydrated food consists of wide noodles, assorted dried vegetables and flavouring powder. It is prepared by adding boiling water, which after two to three minutes softens the noodles and dissolves the powdered sauce. The product is packaged in a plastic pot, from which the prepared noodles can be eaten. Many pots contain a sachet of sauce, such as soy sauce. Pot Noodle has been linked to lad culture, with its advertising and packaging being viewed as controversial and sexist.
Instant noodles were originally developed in 1958 by Momofuku Ando as Cup Noodle. Golden Wonder launched the Pot Noodle brand in the United Kingdom in 1977. In July 1995 Best Foods, which produces Hellmanns mayonnaise, paid then owner Dalgety plc $280 million for its Golden Wonder Pot Noodle instant hot snacks manufacturing business. Bestfoods, known as CPC international before 1997, was itself acquired by Unilever in 2000. Unilever kept the Pot Noodle brand and its sole production factory, after it sold the rest of the Golden Wonder business in 2006 to Tayto. Golden Wonder later established another line of pot noodles called The Nation's Noodle (renamed Noodle Pot in 2016) in direct competition with their former brand.
Pot Noodles are manufactured in Croespenmaen, near Crumlin, Caerphilly, Wales, which became the topic of a 2006 advertising campaign, showing fictitious Pot Noodle mines in Wales. The factory typically produces 175 million pots annually.