From Restaurant Closure to 1,600 Retail Doors in 3 Years

In this episode of The Future of Consumer Marketing, host Brett Stapper interviews Khalil Khamis, CEO of Crafty Ramen. When COVID-19 forced restaurant closures, Crafty Ramen pivoted from a small Canadian restaurant chain to a frozen meal kit phenomenon that caught fire online and now sits on 1,600+ retail shelves across Canada. Their journey from selling 100 local meal kits that sold out in minutes to becoming Walmart Canada's go-to solution for restaurant-quality frozen ramen reveals critical lessons about product evolution, retail expansion, and marketing in the CPG space. Khalil shares how they transformed consumer demand during lockdown into a scalable retail business while maintaining product quality through multiple format changes. Topics Discussed: Pivoting from restaurants to CPG during COVID-19 Building viral demand with limited inventory and local pickup Transitioning from fresh meal kits to frozen products for retail scalability Strategic decision-making around direct-to-consumer vs. retail channels Trade show strategies for breaking into major retail chains Building distribution relationships and managing 1,600+ retail partnerships Team structure for lean marketing operations in CPG Personal branding vs. corporate brand pages in modern consumer marketing