The Retail Expansion
Crafty Ramen, the Ontario-based restaurant brand that built its name on scratch-made broths and in-house noodle production, is now on shelves at Target and Kroger locations across the United States — a move that pushes its North American retail footprint to nearly 6,400 doors. The expansion adds roughly 4,100 U.S. points of distribution and joins existing retail partnerships with Sprouts Farmers Market, Schnucks, Meijer, Albertsons, and Kings/Balducci's.
The brand was founded in Guelph, Ontario in 2017 by husband-and-wife team Jared and Miki Ferrall, who trained at the Yamato School of Ramen in Japan before opening a 24-seat neighborhood restaurant. What distinguishes the retail product from conventional instant ramen is its frozen "puck" format — a layered, single-serve unit combining real bone broth, fresh-style noodles made daily on Japanese noodle machines, protein, vegetables, and toppings — designed to be ready in minutes on the stovetop or in a microwave-safe bowl. Five SKUs carry an MSRP of $7.99 each.
Production Behind the Scale
The company manufactures entirely in its own Ontario facilities. CEO Khalil Khamis, who joined as a customer before taking on an operational role and assuming the CEO position in 2021, says production capacity has grown from 2,500 bowls per week to more than 55,000 to support the retail ramp. The brand has now sold more than 2 million bowls across North America, having scaled from approximately 150 retail doors to its current position in roughly four years.
"We believe everyone deserves the comfort of a great bowl of ramen without spending hours in the kitchen," said Jared and Miki Ferrall. "Real bone broth, scratch-made noodles and toppings done right, all ready in minutes." That positioning — restaurant provenance meeting freezer-aisle convenience — is increasingly relevant as operators and food and beverage brands look for ways to extend their restaurant identity into CPG channels without sacrificing quality signals that resonate with today's ingredient-conscious shopper.
What It Means for the Category
The Target and Kroger listings represent a significant validation moment for the premium frozen meals segment, where restaurant-branded retail products have struggled historically to hold shelf space against legacy CPG players. Crafty Ramen's approach — manufacturing its own noodles using the same process as the restaurant, sourcing real bone broth, and offering globally inspired flavor profiles like Brisket Birria and Spicy Chicken Tantanmen — gives it a differentiation story that can travel from the restaurant dining room to a mass retailer's freezer case.
The five-variety lineup draws directly from the restaurant menu, a strategy that reinforces brand authenticity at retail and gives the foodservice side of the business a halo effect. For operators and buyers tracking the crossover between foodservice concepts and retail grocery, Crafty Ramen's trajectory — from a two-dozen-seat restaurant to a brand in thousands of U.S. retail doors within less than a decade — is a case study worth watching in the frozen meals and noodle categories.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
