Posh Noodle

Pot Noodle’s Short-Lived Premium Range

Forgotten Food & Drinks · 2003–2007

Archived on

Region

United Kingdom

Associated With

Unilever Bestfoods - Posh Noodle brand owner

Defining Feature

An upmarket Pot Noodle range promoted with “Not for the likes of you”

Status

Discontinued - three variants listed as withdrawn by July 2007

Overview

Posh Noodle was Unilever Bestfoods’ upmarket Pot Noodle range for British shoppers in the 2000s.

Planned for shelves in February 2003, it offered Oriental Sweet and Sour, Spicy Chinese Chicken and Spicy Chilli. Its advertising used the line “Not for the likes of you” to sell the upmarket idea.

A black Spicy Chilli pot survives with a September 2004 best-before mark. By July 2007, all three variants were listed as withdrawn from the wider Pot Noodle range.

Why It Mattered

The advert made an instant noodle pot the extravagant gift a family supposedly could not afford. Joey’s protest at receiving one for his twenty-first birthday gave “Not for the likes of you” a concrete joke: an everyday convenience food was being treated as a luxury.

Planned Rollout and Withdrawal

  • The Grocer’s 11 January 2003 report expected the range on shelves the following month; February was a planned rollout month, not an exact first-sale date.
  • The Grocer’s 23 July 2007 range-revision report listed all three Posh variants among the flavours pulled.
  • The withdrawal report does not date the final production run, stock exhaustion or last retail sale.

Flavours and Surviving Pack

  • Launch coverage named Oriental Sweet and Sour, Spicy Chinese Chicken and Spicy Chilli.
  • A surviving Spicy Chilli pot is marked “BBE SEP 04”; a companion view gives its declared weight as 71g.
  • The launch report described noodles imported from Thailand without establishing every ingredient’s origin or the finished product’s manufacturing location.

Campaign and Production

  • Marketing Week credited HHCL/Red Cell with the campaign and reported a £3 million budget; the amount has not been independently reconciled.
  • Its report records the “Not for the likes of you” line and the fictional twenty-first-birthday story featuring Joey.
  • Production designer John Bramble’s CV lists “POSH NOODLE / Happy Birthday / Dir. Dom&nic @ Outsider”.
Sources & Records

  • Out of Date Spicy Chilli Posh Noodle — Side and Base View

    Scott Simpson’s photograph of an original package, taken/uploaded 21 August 2013. The inspected image supports the branding and best-before-mark claims. The artefact date is not a launch or manufacture date. The page states all rights reserved; no free reuse grant was found.

  • Out of Date Spicy Chilli Posh Noodle — Lid and Side View

    Scott Simpson’s companion photograph of the same specimen, taken/uploaded 21 August 2013. It supports the Spicy Chilli identification and 71g pack reading. Fine ingredients and nutrition text were not legible enough for complete transcription. No free reuse grant was found.

  • John Bramble — Production Designer: CV

    Eight-page participant CV hosted by Art Department; relevant credit on printed and PDF page 6. It corroborates the “Happy Birthday” title and direction by Dom&nic at Outsider. The row has no individual date, so neighbouring year headings cannot securely date production.

  • Pot Noodle Posh Noodle Advert

    Third-party upload by King Of The 00s preserving period advertising content. Selected scenes were inspected, but no continuous full viewing or audio transcription was completed. The uploader is not identified as the original maker, and the upload does not establish first broadcast, master provenance or reuse rights.

Gallery

Crumpled black Posh Noodle pot on its side against white, with bright yellow and red Spicy Chilli branding and a base stamped BBE SEP 04.
Source
Credit

Scott Simpson (scott.simpson99), 21 August 2013, via Flickr. Original Posh Noodle packaging; photograph all rights reserved, editorial review pending.

Caption

Posh Noodle Spicy Chilli pot with a September 2004 best-before mark.