As a small business that believes that food shouldn't be a race to the bottom, we want to make ramen ethically and responsibly: in fact, we make all the noodles ourselves in the USA, pay employees a living wage and only use high quality ingredients we'd eat ourselves (because we do)!
We’re also committed to always keeping a fair, living wage for everyone we work with and ensuring healthy work-life balances, including no questions asked paid time off for mental health. The unfortunate reality of the situation is that if we wanted to produce at dirt cheap levels like standard instant ramen, we would have to outsource to factories overseas who might exploit their workers, and that’s something that we refuse to do. Instead, we produce in the USA to make sure that every part of Vite Ramen, from the ingredients to the labor, is traceable and accountable.
Being from a culinary background, we’re intimately familiar with the kind of exploitation that workers can be subject to, and the kind of poverty people can experience even while working twelve hour days. The first step to combating this kind of exploitation is to set up business models that incorporate living wages and healthy amounts of vacation and PTO for people, rather than the unsustainable business models that currently exist. Ever since the beginning, it’s been our intention to set up a program in the future to help distribute our ramen free of charge to those who need it, as giving back to others is something that we think the world can always use more of.
