Ippudo, the premium ramen noodle restaurant chain, is set for an overseas roll-out sponsored by Cool Japan Fund, a Japanese government entrepreneurial fund.
Cool Japan Fund, which currently has 100bn yen in which to sponsor Japanese companies expanding overseas, will invest 2bn yen (£10.5m) in Fukuoka-based Chikaranomoto Holdings which runs 120 Ippudo-branded ramen restaurants in Japan and mainly Asian cities already.
“In Japan, people leave the ramen shop as soon as they finish eating,” Nobuo Sugiuchi, co-chief investment officer of Cool Japan Fund, told Reuters. “But we want to build a ramen shop chain in a different style overseas. A ramen shop should be a place where customers can enjoy sake and side dishes as well as ramen.”
The brand opened its first site in the UK, earlier this autumn in London’s Central St Giles.
