The Man Behind Instant Noodles - Momofuku Ando's Journey

You might have heard of Momofuku, the restaurant chain started by David Chang in New York. What you might not know is that David Chang named his restaurant after Momofuku Ando, the man who invented instant noodles. While the restaurant has an interesting story too, the original Momofuku's story is even more interesting and remarkable. Momofuku Ando started his company from nothing after WWII and created a $5 billion company that feeds millions daily.

Before instant noodles took over the world, Ando was just a man with a vision and a shed. He built a tiny workspace in his backyard. No fancy lab, no team, just him, a 40-watt bulb, and sheer determination. Every day, he got up at 5 a.m., scribbled ideas on scraps of paper stuck to the wall, and worked deep into the night on four hours of sleep.

a recreation of the shed.

He was all about getting his hands dirty with experiments. Kneading dough, cutting noodles, and testing out all sorts of cooking techniques. For a whole year, he didn't take a single day off, until finally, he hit on the idea of flash-frying noodles that could be rehydrated instantly.

In 1958, he introduced the first instant noodles. They turned into a worldwide sensation, with over 100 billion servings eaten every year. His famous Cup Noodles have sold more than 40 billion units around the globe.

Even though he didn't have much money, a formal education, experience, or the advantage of youth, he kept pushing forward. His story shows how determination and creativity can help you get through anything. He faced some tough times, including being wrongly tortured by the army and losing his office and factories during the war. After the war, he was even falsely suspected of tax evasion by GHQ, which landed him in Sugamo Prison, where A-class war criminals were held.

Reading his autobiography, I was struck by how he was a true master of resilience, bouncing back no matter how many times life knocked him down.

From Scapegoat to Visionary: Ando’s Ordeal in the War

During the war, he co-founded a company that manufactured parts for military aircraft engines. Since the materials were government-supplied goods provided by the state, there were strict inspections by the military every month.

One day, he found out that the numbers didn’t add up. It looked like someone might be stealing supplies. Ando turned pale. In an era where tampering with military supplies could get you killed, there was no room for excuses.

He went to consult with the Osaka police, but they sent him over to the military police. Once there, a corporal told him to wait and then just vanished. After hours of waiting, they detained him, and an interrogation began. "You’re the one smuggling goods, aren’t you?" they accused him. Though he insisted he was innocent, they didn't listen and ended up beating him and torturing him.

He was thrown into a detention cell packed with men huddled shoulder to shoulder, so cramped that none of them could even stretch out to lie down. The assaults continued relentlessly, and after days without sunlight, he became so exhausted that he could barely walk.

They prepared a confession document that stated, "I am the culprit," and pressured him into signing it. But no matter what, even if it could have cost him his life, he fought back.

He thought about how to escape the situation. In the end, he might just die from the torture. He figured it might be better to stop trying to be healthy if he gets beaten, so Ando decided to fast.

He started experiencing diarrhea and could feel his strength slipping away. He felt like he was staring death right in the face. His extreme weakness made everyone else in the room feel really sympathetic toward him.

One guy asked, "I can go out tomorrow. Is there anything I can do to help?" Ando told him to contact his old friend, a general from the Imperial Army, about his situation. Immediately, the next day, the friend showed up at the military police and got him out of the detention center.

He had to spend 60 days in a hospital for treatment. The injury in his abdomen became a lasting pain, leading to two additional abdominal surgeries for intestinal obstruction later in his life.

Ando later discovered that there was a trap to frame him; it was his business partner, secretly connected to the corporal, who was stealing the materials.

But Ando saw a way to turn everything into a profit. In that moment, he felt something deep inside him that would eventually spark the idea of instant noodles. In a tough spot, he was struck by the powerful realization that there’s nothing more amazing than food for people. He said, "I once became a pig. When I climbed up from there, I grasped food."

Post-War Hardships

On August 15, 1945, he listened to the Imperial Rescript on the radio, in which Japan declared its defeat and the war’s end.

The day after the end of the war, he and his wife took a train from his evacuation site to Osaka. Burned bodies were still left abandoned by the roadside.

The air raids that started with the big one in Osaka on March 13 and went on until just before the war ended on August 14 caused a lot of devastation. They destroyed 310,000 homes, affected 1,135,000 people, and sadly, there were 14,000 lives lost.

His offices, the heart of Ando's business, along with the aircraft parts factory, were all turned to ashes. Standing on the war-torn land, now just a pile of ash, Ando felt completely lost.

More than a year after the final listening, the streets were still filled with hungry children and emaciated, hollow-eyed people in a state of starvation. The people hunched over by the side of the road were those who had recently died from starvation.

He started noticing that the streets were also crowded with returning soldiers, repatriates, and those returning from the front lines. Some of them were even carrying handguns, which made the whole scene pretty tense. He thought to himself, "It's concerning that so many young people are just hanging around without jobs; I’ve got to step in before they get into trouble." So, at 36 years old, Ando decided to take action and said, "Alright, I’ll handle it." He thought about gathering these young people and giving them work that could help the community. There were a bunch of thin steel beams stacked up in the military factory area, and looking at them sparked an idea. "Okay, let’s make some salt."

Even though he had no experience making salt, he had watched the salt fields in Ako pretty closely while he was evacuating nearby. That was pretty much all he knew about it. Still, for some reason, he felt sure he could pull it off, even as a total newbie.

The initiative wasn't a business but more like volunteering. But young people were given pocket money. When recruitment posters were put up, over a hundred young people quickly gathered.

Imprisonment

It was Christmas night in 1948. Ando hosted a farewell party for his friends. After the party ended and the guests were sent off, as he was about to get into a car parked behind the hall, two U.S. Army Military Police grabbed Ando from both sides. Without explanation, they pushed him into a jeep. Ando had no idea what was happening.

They accused him of tax evasion. The pocket money given to young people was considered taxable income, and they claimed he hadn't paid the taxes that should have been withheld. It wasn't the Japanese tax authorities pursuing him; it was GHQ, the Allied occupation forces, who solidified the charges and moved to arrest him. Ando felt like all the goodwill he had shown was completely ignored.

A trial took place at the military government office in Osaka, and in just a week, they handed down a verdict of 'four years of hard labor.' He didn’t get a chance to present his arguments at all. The Osaka Finance Bureau seized his assets, which included everything he owned: his house, the factory, and the mountain forests in Hyogo Prefecture where he used to make charcoal. He was then moved to Sugamo Prison, the Tokyo Detention Center.

Entrance to Sugamo Prison.

Ando decided to fight back and sue the tax authorities to overturn the whole thing. He wasn't having any of this. He kept at it for two years. As the trial dragged on, the tax officials started getting nervous. GHQ had pushed the Japanese tax authorities to crack down hard on taxes to fix their budget problems, which made people really angry. Now that things were looking bad for them, they came to him and said, "Hey, how about you just drop the complaint?" If he did, they'd let him go right away. If he won the trial, it would just add fuel to the anti-tax movement that was already heating up. They wanted to cut a deal.

But Ando kept fighting. His wife would show up at the detention center every month, crying and begging him, "Please, just drop the complaint." Each time, he would respond with determination, "Just hang on a little longer."

However, everything changed during one particular visit. His wife arrived holding their son's hand and carrying their baby daughter. As he watched those little hands waving goodbye, a wave of emotion washed over him. In that moment, even Ando had to admit, "Maybe it's time to call it quits."

When he considered what his family was enduring, it became clear that there's only so far he can push his sense of right and wrong. He was out as soon as he withdrew the complaint.

Invention of a Cup Noodle

When Ando got out of prison, he had to start fresh as an entrepreneur. After some time, he remembered how important food was to him during his time locked up.

He had this idea for ramen that people could whip up at home quickly, and he was determined to make it happen.

But it wasn’t easy. He didn’t have a team or any money, so he had to do everything himself. He reached out to an old friend who was a carpenter and asked him to build a small shed, about ten square meters, in his garden. That would be his little research lab. Then, he hit up the tool district in Osaka and found a second-hand noodle-making machine. He bought a big Chinese pot, a 40-pound bag of flour, and some cooking oil, then strapped it all to his bike to bring it home.

Getting started was a total trial-and-error situation since he had no clue about making noodles. He quickly learned that the ingredients needed to be carefully balanced. The right amount of water and salt could really change the texture of the noodles.

After countless attempts, he started picking up the tricks of the trade. He was on a mission to find that perfect balance, pushing himself to refine his process and appreciate the little details. He researched how to make ramen noodles and went through thousands of trials, but he just couldn’t nail down the ideal results.

But in the end, at 48 years old, Momofuku Ando invented instant noodles.

Zero to Ramen Hero

Today, his company, Nissin Foods, has grown into a $5 billion revenue business. The instant noodles he created in that tiny shed now feed people in over 100 countries.

What I really love about Ando's story is that it shows how the biggest breakthroughs can come from the most unexpected places. Here’s a guy with zero food industry experience, working solo in a small shed, and he ends up creating one of the most successful food products ever.

Plus, his ability to push through torture, imprisonment, and a ton of failures is seriously inspiring. It makes the struggles of today’s founders look like a minor bump in the road.

The next time you worry about not having the right experience, remember Ando had zero food industry background. When you feel like giving up after a setback, remember Ando was tortured and imprisoned but still kept going. When you think you're too old to start something new, remember that Ando was 48 when he invented instant noodles.