Here's how Nissin Foods is growing its noodle business (2024)

A Japanese company’s new spicy ramen noodles are kindling hot profits from its Lancaster County factory.

Nissin Food’s East Hempfield Township facility is benefitting from the company’s recent strategy of introducing new flavors to its long beloved Top Ramen and Cup Noodle brands. Eighty new jobs and a new production line have been added since 2022 and the workforce now is about 600.

The company sees the flavors such as Hot & Spicy Fire Wok and the Limited Edition Everything Bagel with Cream Cheese —Yes, that’s a noodle flavor! — introduced this month as a way to respond to the changing tastes of younger consumers. This follows the introduction of two other products: Top Ramen Bowl, which puts Top Ramen and dried vegetables and flavoring in a disposable bowl, and a variety of Cup Noodles containing a full serving of vegetables.

“Gen Z – they're all about hot; they’re all about authentic flavors,” said CEO Brian Huff at a recent tour of the local factory and private noodle tasting.

Nissin is an example of a thriving food production business in a sector that has seen its workforce grow. Even as manufacturing in Lancaster County and the country has declined, food production has kept its workforce, even grown a little. That means that today 22% of manufacturing workers in Lancaster County work in food manufacturing. In 1990, just 12% worked in food manufacturing.

Also late last year the company switched from Styrofoam cups (supplied locally by Dart Container) to paper cups, which are made in a partnership with a Pittston, Luzerne County, company. The cups are partly made of recycled paper and are microwavable. The company acknowledged in an ad campaign that many customers were already microwaving the styrofoam cups.

Sales at Nissin increased 21% in the first quarter of fiscal 2023, up from the same period in 2022 and the fourth consecutive quarter of high double-digit sales growth for the company, according to Food Business News. .

The ramen category is projected to be worth $81.8 billion by 2029, increasing at a compound annual growth rate of 5.9%, Fortune Business Insights reported.

READ:I tried Nissin Foods' new Everything Bagel noodles [column]

Busy all the time

Nissin Foods has operated locally since 1978, and its East Hempfield workers produce and package about 60% of the company’s product in the United States, said Mike Reher, plant manager and employee of 35 years. The company rode the wave of eat-at-home during the pandemic and is riding the next trend in reaction to inflation – affordable meals.

“We receive about 10 truckloads of flour a day, “ Reher said on a recent tour. The flour comes from a central Pennsylvania mill about an hour and a half away.

The Hempland Road plant that can be seen from Route 30 just east of Centerville Road has grown since it opened in 1978 with 150 employees. The plant now comprises 230,000 square feet of space across three buildings.The company also has a 221,000-square-foot distribution center in Lime Spring Square that opened in 2020.

Inside the Hempland Road facility, the dough is shaped into noodles, steamed and fried on six production lines, each making different types of noodles. The noodles then head through a cooling tunnel and to packaging. The line added in 2022 was a high-speed bowl noodle line that increased capacity.

“We thought we’d be able to stop our old lines but the capacity continues to mount so now we operate both of them,” Reher said.

Nissin announced last year it will spend $228 million on a 640,640-square-foot ramen manufacturing facility in South Carolina. The plant is expected to open in 2025. Huff said there are no plans to close its Lancaster plant or its other facility in California.

Huff said the South Carolina facility will increase the production capacity by more than 30%. It could lead to reconfiguring what is produced at each plant but no loss in jobs or work.

“The good news is we need more capacity – right now we’re running every day with all shifts with all the people we can muster in both of our facilities,” Huff said.

Key piece of Lancaster County’s food manufacturing landscape

“The actual number of food processing jobs in Lancaster County has gradually grown since the 2008 recession,” said John Biemiller, vice president of business retention & expansion for EDC Lancaster, the county’s main economic development organization.

The sector’s relationship with agriculture here is varied. Biemiller said. Chocolate, sugar, wheat (in large quantities), nuts, potatoes, vanilla, organic apples and rice are not grown locally, so some of the largest companies depend on raw materials from outside the area or even the country.

In other cases, companies are directly tied to local agriculture production for products such as milk, eggs, poultry, beef, swine, and vegetables.

As a percent of total manufacturing employment, the increase is intensified by the decrease in overall manufacturing employment that occurred from 2000 to around 2009, Biemiller said.

“In general, food processing is a stable sector – while preferences may change during good and bad economic times, people still buy food,” Biemiller said. “The pandemic is a great example, as peoples’ food purchases switched from eating out to eating at home – driving sales from restaurants to grocery stores. Food processors in Lancaster County service both markets, though we are particularly strong in retail products.”