Nona Lim Acquired By Hong Kong-based Food Content Platform

Nona Lim has been acquired by DDC Enterprise Limited, the parent company of Hong Kong food content consumer brand, DayDayCook (DDC). But San Francisco-based Nona Lim won’t be making too many drastic moves following the deal.

The company will continue to operate as a standalone noodle business and its namesake founder and CEO, Nona Lim, will remain in her post and continue to be involved in day-to-day operations. Additional terms were not disclosed.

Nona Lim makes a variety of fresh noodles, broths and stir-fry kits while DDC operates in similar categories with a range of better-for-you meal solutions in both ready-to-heat (RTH) and ready-to-cook (RTC) formats. Nona Lim products are sold at Whole Foods, Kroger, Wegmans, Target and online via the brand’s website as well as Hungryroot and Imperfect Foods. The noodles sell for about $6 to $10 per pack, depending on the variety and size, while the broths retail for around $6 per 10 oz. pouch.

According to Lim, discussions between her eponymous brand and DDC, founded by Norma Chu, began when the two founders spoke on a panel together last year and connected over their shared experiences as Asian female entrepreneurs. With DDC looking to enter the U.S. market, and Nona Lim in need of supply chain resources to ramp up new product innovation, Lim said the conversation continued for nearly nine months before the duo decided that joining forces made sense for both businesses.

“I really enjoy Norma, she’s incredibly smart, she’s great to work with and she’s also very strategic – we just connected from a personality and a fit perspective,” said Lim. “This is not about selling to retire, it is more about finding somebody that I can go the journey with together. It was really enticing as well because being a solo founder it can be lonely sometimes and to meet another fellow female, solo founder – I think it was the right time, right place, great fit.”

The move will give Nona Lim a stronger platform to continue growing its product portfolio and Lim said the duo were already brainstorming and innovating before the deal closed. DDC has strong sourcing relationships across Asia which have been essential to getting Nona Lim’s new products pieced together. In Q4 2023, the brand is aiming to expand into center store with the launch of instant noodle cups made with entirely freeze-dried ingredients. It will also launch a line of refrigerated, ready-to-heat meat-based meals, such as Singaporean Chicken Curry, with Kroger in October.

“I think that there’s still so much opportunity there to really push a little further with a lot more interesting dishes from Southeast Asia where I grew up,” said Lim about the meal line.

According to Lim, the brand is going full speed on innovation for the foreseeable future. Earlier this month, it was also announced that Nona Lim had secured a $1 million line of credit from JPalmer Collective, a asset-based lending company in March by Jennifer Palmer, the former CEO of Gerber Finance. At the time of the announcement, Nona Lim was said to be honing in on new product innovation and distribution expansion with the financing.

The company has raised approximately $6.8 million to-date, including $1 million in debt financing from Gerber in April 2020. Lim said the brand reached its first profitable year in 2021.

Hong Kong-based DDC, which began as a food content creation platform in 2012, will also give Nona Lim additional social media and marketing muscle. Lim explained that she has been focused on the “back of house” part of the business such as manufacturing and product development since launching in 2014. As for DDC, Lim said the partnership will give its line of ready-to-eat meal products a leg up with U.S. based retailers and help the company expand beyond its current product platform as well.

“This acquisition is a unique opportunity for DayDayCook to reach a new audience via Nona Lim,” said Norma Chu, DayDayCook founder and CEO, in a press release. “Having established very strong growth in our reach and engagement across Asia, establishing a growing presence in the U.S. is an important strategic step.”