Korean ramen hottest: World Ramen Summit

As dignitaries at the World Ramen Summit wrapped up proceedings late last week in Seoul, the International Ramen Manufacturers Association, which organized the meeting, released statistics highlighting some of the global imbalances in ramen consumption.
Although Chinese people ate 44 billion of the 86 billion packs of ramen consumed worldwide in 2005, on a per capita basis, the Chinese ate an average of just 30 instant ramen meals a year. Koreans lead the world in per capita instant ramen consumption at 75 meals per year.
The 1.4 trillion won ($1.4 billion) Korean ramen market was also highlighted as having spicier noodles than other countries. The hottest of Korean ramen, “Shin” ramen manufactured by Nong Shim, has a 22 percent domestic market share. The noodles are exported to 70 countries including ramen heavyweights like China, Japan and the United States.
Indonesia’s Indofood Sukses Makmur, the largest manufacturer at the summit, commented that many Indonesian ramen makers are concerned about Korea’s entrance to their ramen market.
In terms of gross ramen consumption, Indonesia came second with 12.4 billion packs of ramen consumed. Japan was third with 5.5 billion packs, followed by the United States, which consumed 3.9 billion packs. Korea came in fifth.
The two-day ramen summit was attended by producers from 10 countries. Nong Shim represented the Korean manufacturers at the bi-annual meeting.
Companies at the summit agreed to set up a natural disaster and poverty relief fund, and design universal standards to raise the quality of ramen products.
In particular, Nong Shim said it would lower the level of sodium to meet the global consumer trend for healthier products.

by Kim Pil-kyu, Lee ho-jeong