[1] In July 1995, Best Foods, which produces Hellmanns mayonnaise, paid then owner Dalgety plc $280 million for its Golden Wonder Pot Noodle instant hot snacks manufacturing business.

[3] Unilever kept the Pot Noodle brand and its sole production factory, after it sold the rest of the Golden Wonder business in January 2006 to Tayto.

A "GTi" variant, prepared in a microwave instead of adding boiling water, was introduced at the end of the 2000s and was the first Pot Noodle to contain real meat.

During the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Unilever sponsored a musical directed by David Sant, and created by advertising agency Mother, set in a Pot Noodle factory.

In January 2002, Irish politician Michael Ring TD, branded a Pot Noodle animated television advertisement as glorifying child neglect and demanded it be banned.

Ring said "the manufacturers have a responsibility to the public not to encourage youngsters to lick frozen pipes or suggest that adults should neglect a suffering child".

[9][10] The related poster campaign, revolving around the "Hot Noodle" range with a tagline of "hurt me, you slag" was withdrawn by Unilever after the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld complaints that "the tone could be interpreted as condoning violence".

"[13] In a September 2006 article headed "Teach Pot Noodle teens to cook" in Dublin's Sunday Independent newspaper, Cavan chef Nevin Maguire on a recent school visit was shocked "to see 60 per cent of Leaving Cert students had Pot Noodle for their lunch".

Maguire, along with other celebrity chefs called for compulsory cookery lessons in Ireland's schools for a "new generation that thinks 'food comes in a box'".

This range hearkened back to earlier ranges like 'Posh Noodle' and 'Asian Street Style' with more exotic world food flavours including Chilli Chicken, Katsu Curry and the previously available Thai Green Curry flavours, as a partial rebrand and partial new launch.