The Thai-based brand is best-known for its tomato chips, which gained newfound popularity Kpop girl group BLACKPINK’s Jisoo mentioned these in an Instagram post in 2023.
The company has been making snacks for several decades, but is now moving to align with consumer demands for convenient meal options that are also healthier.
“Snacks are our bread and butter and we have been making the tomato chips, for example, for over 30 years – but we have also noticed immense possibilities for us to grow in the convenience foods sector,” Fashion Food international sales manager Pisit Tiaworapakin told us.
“Our research shows that one of the most-appreciated trends in the industry is novelty, as consumers are constantly looking for products they have never seen before – which is why we developed our instant rice soup, the first ever made in Thailand.”
Fashion Food’s instant rice soup is not porridge or congee, but instead literally rice in soup, a more traditional format of rice consumption that is not commonly found in an instant format.
“Tasty versions of rice soups require cooking for between three to eight hours – our instant version is ready-to-heat and just requires the addition of hot water plus five minutes of waiting for it to be ready,” he added.
“This has made it a very popular choice for camping, and beyond the convenience our recipes also include chunks of protein such as eggs, mushrooms or seaweed so it is still a healthy, nourishing option.”
Healthier noodles
Instant noodles like ramen often get a bad rap for containing high contents of sodium or fat, so Fashion Food developed a new, healthier type of ready-to-cook (RTC) noodles in order to cater to wellness demands.
“These dried noodles are healthier than the average instant noodles as they are not made with any oil and contain riceberry rice to bring added vitamins and fibre into the mix,” he added.
“We have our own instant noodles as well, as we make a cracked noodle snack using the instant noodles, but we see a lot of growth in the dried noodles due to its convenient yet nutritious appeal.”
The dried noodles have already moved beyond Thailand to the export market, starting with Malaysia in 2024.
“The intention of the dried noodles is not to compete with big instant noodle firms, especially when it comes to exports – instead, we have chosen to start by working with various restaurants in Malaysia and are selling big packs of these there,” said Tiaworapakin.
“In fact I would say just about every Thai restaurant in Malaysia is using our dried noodles, and there are a lot of Thai restaurants in this market.”
Multifaceted growth
Although Fashion Food has no intention of reducing focus on its snacks business, the firm is committed to develop its convenience foods focus with a health theme moving forward.
“We will focus on all sides, both snacking and convenience foods, and healthier innovation will be the main priority for the latter especially when it comes to noodles,” he said.
“At present, our instant noodle bowls are actually doing the best in western markets like the United States and Europe – these are markets that use microwaves a lot, making microwaveable bowl options very appealing, and we are thinking that the instant rice soups will be a novel and healthier option there as well in the future.”
