Young Chang, founder and CEO of A-Sha Noodles, joined Cheddar News to discuss what inspired him to create his new company. "Our whole objective was to keep that nostalgic comfort feeling of the ramen noodle but bring it in a better-for-you method," he said.

<div class="block">Young Chang, founder and CEO of A-Sha Noodles, joined Cheddar News to discuss what inspired him to create his new company. &quot;Our whole objective was to keep that nostalgic comfort feeling of the ramen noodle but bring it in a better-for-you method,&quot; he said.</div>

Closing Bell

A-Sha Noodles Founder on His Company's Brand and Plans

This segment is brought to you by JP Morgan Chase, celebrating cultural diversity through Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Let's be honest, who doesn't love a good bowl of noodles? I certainly do. Founder and CEO of ASHA Noodles. Young chang joins me now young. Thank you. Hey, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you as well. What inspired you to create this company? Um I think we had a very simple goal starting out. Um Basically, I think everyone really likes Ramen noodles. Uh Most of us grew up eating them. We have a of any kind of story related to Ramen noodles. So, you know, as you get older, you start to learn more about products and you start to care a little bit more about health and things like that. So our whole objective was to keep that nostalgic comfort, feeling of the ramen noodle, but bring it in a better for you method so that, you know, you could feel a little bit less guilty about eating it. Yeah. Well, I know you've done some pretty high profile collaborations including Hello, Kitty. Why are these collabs important to you and your business? Um I think for us, I mean, given that it's api month is perfect timing. I mean, our company really is sort of the the immigrant story, um a very traditional Taiwanese brand coming over to the United States. So for us to come over um and kind of assimilate into the culture, assimilate into the marketplace. Um a very crowded marketplace, right? With a lot, a lot of established players, um we had to call on some very familiar um licenses and, you know, more popular um entities in this, in this market to help us out. So um having the opportunity to collaborate with Hello, Kitty, having the opportunity to collaborate with, you know, Momofuku from New York, I mean, these are all collabs that I think people in the United States already know about these things. And so for us to team up with these, with these partners, it really helped us kind of accelerate our growth in the US market. I know instant noodles, they're rapidly growing right now. They're very convenient as well as tasty. But why do you think that is? And has your company been able to capitalize on that expansion? Yeah, absolutely. I think nowadays um everyone's looking for um quick and easy meal solutions. Um But at the end of the day, the product needs to taste good um and it needs to be, you know, somewhat sustainable in the sense of it's not something that you can only eat once and then maybe you get sick of it. It's got to be something that can be repeated and, you know, oftentimes, you know, recons week over week. Um, and certainly for us, you know, um, coming out of COVID, actually during COVID, COVID really accelerated our growth because a lot of people were stuck at home. Um, we were looking for more stay at home options and try to bring that restaurant quality best in class, um dining experience um at home. So for us to, to do instant ramen, it was a way to explore and to kind of experience a very ethnic product, but in a way that's very convenient and simple to prepare. So pretty much everyone can, you know, prepare it at home. So what makes your company ASHA noodles stand out from what else is on the market? Yeah, I mean, in addition to the great collabs that we've done, primarily speaking and when it comes to the product, traditional ramen noodle is always deep fried. Um Traditionally, it's been, you know, a lot of MS G, a lot of artificial flavors. So the main two differentiators of our product is that number one, our air, our, our noodles are air dried. So there's an 18 hour air drying process. That's how we sort of cure and preserve the product. So um just like a cold brew coffee, you retain a lot more flavor, a lot more nutrition and the product overall is healthier when you look at the nutritionals. At the same time, our sauce is liquid based. So we have very simple ingredients, soy sauce, sesame oil. So we don't really introduce a lot of artificial flavors and colors for that purpose. They look really tasty. I got to tell you young, I'm hungry and this is a city and I think it's just a perfect time. A lot of people maybe with that afternoon, Fix young chang. Thank you. All right. Well, JP Morgan Chase is committed to advancing opportunity and progress for the Asian and Pacific Islander community globally. Visit JP Morgan chase dot com slash A API to learn more.