Ron Freeman became an entrepreneur and founded the first black-owned Instant Ramen Noodles brand after spending three years in jail at a California correctional facility .
An abrupt change was effected in his life in 1996, when a gram of crack cocaine was discovered in his trash can by police.
He was sentenced to three years imprisonment after pleading not guilty for being in possession of the hard drug.
In our culture, snitches get stitches. You don’t tell,” Freeman told The Outline. “The culprit was a well-known member of the Crips, and ratting him out would mean certain death,” he said.
During his days in jail, Freeman was exposed to eating ramen noodles, and which he often used as an alternative to money. He worked as a prison cook and observed the inmates’ love for packaged ramen noodle soups.
According to the World Instant Noodles Association, the world ate roughly 608.7 billion units of ramen between 2012 and 2016. Of those, 21.3 billion were consumed in the U.S. and a number of those packets are consumed in correctional facilities.
With Freeman’s observation on daily consumption of packs of ramen, his idea of delving into the business got inspired. He was later paroled in 1998, after serving less than half of his 3-year jail term due to good conduct and a drug program.
When he was of prison, it was reported that he received $3,000 from an anonymous giver. On receiving the money, Freeman was very clear as from who the money came from as a reward for not letting the cat out of the bag on the owner of the crack found in his cart. “I knew exactly who it was from,” he said.
The money helped Freeman to get rid of his hot dog cart and upgraded to a catering truck, selling tacos and breakfast burgers around Gardena. His business thrived well, and that birthed his restaurant in 2010 called “Mama Pat’s Gumbo and Grill”, which was named after his grandmother, Patricia Freeman Darby, who used to cook in the city’s jazz clubs.
Freeman’s grandmother recipe which helped his gumbo, gave him a license deal to sell it frozen in grocery stores. This huge success pitched his company as the first Black-owned instant ramen noodle brand.
In his bid to be outstanding amongst his brand competitors, Freeman tried to reach out to how he can win the heart of more customers with high quality ramen. It was noted that ramen noodles can cause high blood and diabetes when consumed much, because of its large sodium content.
Sequel to this, Freeman was able to make an instant ramen noodles with low sodium and salt free alternative with the help of a secret recipe combination.
His Ramen noodles have wide range of flavors like Lamb Stew, Chicken Fajita, Seafood Gumbo, and Chicken Taco. His first distributor was several commissaries licensed by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and privatized jails.
Being an ex-convict, Freeman, popularly called “Chef Ron” hires ex-inmates, because of their inability to get employed after leaving prison. “I’m going to hire people like me that are just hungry, wants to do something with their lives, I wanna give them a shot,” he said.
Describing his imprisonment as a blessing in disguise, Freeman, aims to improve the lives of the 2.2 million people in U.S jails.
Freeman and his business partner, Dave Taylor are very hopeful that Mama Pat’s will override the correctional markets and later replace Maruchan and Nissin ramen.
Today, his company supplies instant ramen noodles to different parts of the United States, and also internationally to Canada and many African countries.
