Sarah Nathan had noticed a hole in the market for Jewish cultural foods and wanted to fill it with something that honored the community, while still having a feel of Americana.<\/p>\n
The Southern California-native figured what could be a better blend of the two cultures than instant matzo ball soup \u2013 classic Jewish comfort food meeting the concept of easy and quick-to-make ramen that has become a convenient cold-weather staple for those across the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been in the food industry for the past decade and at the same time I was doing a lot of Jewish culinary programs,\u201d Nathan told the Columbus Jewish News. \u201cMany of my friends were elevating their own cultures\u2019 foods, and I thought about how nobody was really elevating Jewish cultural food. The representation wasn\u2019t totally there, and we needed Jewish joy more than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nearly two years after first envisioning the idea, Nathan launched NOOISH in September 2024 from Chicago. The company produces freeze-dried, shelf-stable matzo ball soup \u2013 kosher and ovo-vegetarian \u2013 packaged in microwavable cups that can be ready to enjoy in under three minutes.<\/p>\n
Fast forward to the one-year anniversary of the launch and the product has exploded, going viral on TikTok and being featured on The Drew Barrymore Show, a daytime talk show that airs daily on CBS.<\/p>\n
Nathan, 37, is now relocating the business to Columbus, with production set to begin in the new manufacturing kitchen later this month.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really excited to delve into being part of the Columbus community,\u201d Nathan, who has moved into the Short North Arts District, said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been selling at the Bexley\u2019s Farmer Market on Thursdays and (have) gotten a great response. So many people were excited that it\u2019s kosher. It\u2019s a Jewish brand that is adding to the variety of everything that\u2019s going on here in Columbus.\u201d<\/p>\n
The brand\u2019s move was supported by an ECDI Ohio loan from the Sam Baker Fund. ECDI is a Columbus-based organization founded by Inna Kinney, who was a member of the 2020 class of Columbus Jewish News 18 Difference Makers. ECDI helps support small businesses by supplying funding, mentoring or offering business services.<\/p>\n
Nathan had helped run a program with Chobani, a yogurt company, that used their resources to elevate small brands; was a category manager for National Co+op Grocers, a business services cooperative for retail co-op grocery stores throughout the United States; and ran her own consulting business where she helped women and minority-owned small brands navigate the industry.<\/p>\n
An inspiration to start NOOISH stemmed from the Great Big Jewish Food Fest, a ten-day virtual festival which ran in May of 2020 featuring cooking classes, panels with top Jewish chefs from around the world and online Shabbat dinners to raise money for restaurant owners impacted by the pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had 25,000 people tune in and raised $50,000, and this was the first time where I saw so much programming showing the diversity of 15 million ways to be Jewish,\u201d Nathan said. \u201cWe had programming for Black Jews, Latinx Jews, Asian Jews, LGBTQ+ Jews and those from different generations. So many people were like, \u2018Wow, I never felt so connected.\u2019 One of my biggest impetuses was how could this feeling be replicated?\u201d<\/p>\n
While considering the perfect product, it didn\u2019t take long for Nathan to decide on the chicken-broth soup featuring light and tender dumplings called matzo balls, made from matzo meal, eggs and fat, and containing vegetables such as carrots or celery.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether you\u2019re Jewish or not, everyone loves matzo ball soup,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s also something that is not the easiest and quite time consuming to make. I love instant soup and ramen, so I asked if there was a way we could make matzo ball soup into an instant classic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nathan also hoped the product could be enjoyed anywhere at anytime but still taste good. She spent about a year and a half working on getting the ball and broth both right while ensuring the vegetarian product was clean and healthy.<\/p>\n
She partnered with the National Egg Board, which hosted a program to help out those doing innovative work with eggs, and used her connections from her time in the industry to get help and feedback designing the product.<\/p>\n
NOOISH launched at a very timely part of the season. Not only was it ready for the High Holy Days, but for the start of the school year, with college kids going back to dorms in need of easy-to-make meals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had such an amazing response from our customers,\u201d she said. \u201cA really big customer base for us is parents sending their kids to college. They want to send them a little taste of the comfort of home. I\u2019d say 90% of our sales in the first month were sent to college campuses, which is really great.\u201d<\/p>\n
NOOISH is now sold in about 115 retail locations nationwide, including grocery stores, Jewish museums, hospitals, and gift shops. In addition, 15 to 20 Hillels across the country offer the soup through student programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow being with ECDI, we\u2019re in a bigger space with so much support,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s going to give us more flexibility to grow. We\u2019re hoping to have new products out by the new year. And we want to continue to create modern twists of Jewish food. It\u2019s not called the Matzo Ball Soup Company, it\u2019s called NOOISH. There really is a lot of opportunities to keep reinventing Jewish food for a new and modern world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sarah Nathan had noticed a hole in the market for Jewish cultural foods and wanted to fill it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[56879,102,56881,56878,56877,56880,6636,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-119001","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-columbus-ohio","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-jewish-foods","11":"tag-jewish-startup","12":"tag-kosher-food","13":"tag-matzo-ball-soup","14":"tag-nutrition","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}