CHICAGO — Matzo ball soup, a chicken soup with dumplings formulated with crushed unleavened bread called matzah meal, eggs, chicken fat and broth, is commonly eaten during the Jewish Passover holiday. To broaden its appeal, Sarah Nathan wanted to offer matzo ball soup in a convenient, on-the-go format. As a result, she launched Nooish, a direct-to-consumer company producing a freeze-dried, shelf-stable variety of matzo ball soup.

The product, which comes in a package like a ramen noodle cup, features freeze-dried vegetables, three freeze-dried vegetarian matzo balls and a vegan spice broth packet. To prepare, consumers add water, place it in the microwave for a couple of minutes, let it sit and are left with “comfort in a cup,” Nathan said.

“The first recipe had two (matzo) balls (and) now it has three,” she said. “That was a big piece of feedback that I got from everyone that tried it. I wanted to dial in the broth without (it) being that fake chicken flavor or really diluted ramen flavor.”

Prior to launching Nooish in October 2024, Nathan worked in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry with such companies as National Co+op Grocers, Chobani and she owned Bloom CPG, a consulting firm.

During her CPG tenure, Nathan noticed other companies were elevating different cultures and bringing those culture’s food to a broader audience, she said. She felt Jewish cuisine often was overlooked.

Sarah Nathan, founder of Nooish.

| Photo: Nooish

“Finding the right product to showcase modern Jewish comfort food was really the goal,” she said. “There is for sure Jewish food that lives outside of the kosher aisle, but many of those products are niche ingredients like spices or tahini. Having been the frozen buyer for National Grocers I didn’t want to do (a) frozen or refrigerated (product), that’s a supply chain issue. Then matzo ball soup came to mind.”

Nathan is currently self-manufacturing the product in a commercial kitchen.  

“It’s hard to find a co-man that can do what you want without having the sales proved,” Nathan said. “The plan to scale is to be able to find a co-man or build out my own space and get the right machinery to make the product at scale.”

Nathan’s product development journey included working with her cousin Ken Shenkman, owner and co-founder of Bulk Candy Store, a freeze-dried candy maker; a friend in CPG who owns a commercial kitchen in Minnesota; Drexel Food Labs; The American Egg Board’s Eggcelerator Lab; and Chef Billy Caruso.

“I asked him (Ken) if he could freeze-dry matzo ball soup and he sent it to me and it wasn’t perfect,” she said. “I worked with a friend who had a commercial kitchen in Minnesota who purchased a freeze dryer and allowed me to use it while I helped with her marketing efforts.

“I worked with my friend Jonathan Deutsch at Drexel Food Labs on developing the broth. When I moved to Chicago, I was introduced to the American Egg Board Eggcelerator program. They (The American Egg Board) partnered me up with CuliNex (a product development consultancy) to dial in the recipe and efficiencies. Caruso, who opened Rye Deli here in Chicago, put the final touches on the process we use today.”

Relatives and friends have supported Nathan’s company by investing in its family and friends fundraising round and placing presale orders. The fundraising and presale will help build inventory, support the purchase of additional freeze driers and the hiring of personnel, Nathan said.

“I’m trying to be as scrappy as I can (and) bootstrapping from my own savings,” she said. “I’m (also) thinking about launching a crowdfunding campaign.”

While matzo ball soup is Nooish’s first product, other “fun new twists on Jewish foods” may be in the pipeline, Nathan said.

“I think there’s a big opportunity to sell just the balls to foodservice,” she said.

To bring Nooish to more consumers, Nathan is considering foodservice opportunities. Hillel International, a Jewish advocacy organization at college campuses, is one Nathan is currently targeting to solve a supply chain problem.

“Many of them (colleges) already have a soup program where parents can send matzo ball soup to their kids,” she said. “It’s not a formal Hillel International program; just something many of the campuses do and each program looks slightly different.

“It is a pain for the staff or student volunteers to find perishable soup, heat it up, and bring it to the kid’s dorm. This way they get a much better, shelf-stable option delivered to their door that they can eat at their leisure.” 

While Nathan is currently focusing on selling to the Jewish community, she has much bigger aspirations.

“I’m not looking to sell just to the Jewish community,” she said. “It’s just that low hanging fruit where there’s a lot of people already sharing matzo ball soup, so I’m solving for that and the opportunity to be able to get it out to a bigger market.” 

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