Ramen is Japanese word for lo mein (Chinese boiled noodles). Momofuku Ando first introduced his instant chicken ramen in 1958 which had flavoring already infused in the noodles. A the time, at a price of 10 cents per packet, the product cost six times the price of a bowl of fresh ramen.
Ando preserved and ultimately succeeded, even though at took nearly half a century for the world to come around. China consumes 17.8 billion packets, while the figures for Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and the USA respectively are: 9.9 billion, 5.35 billion, 3.64 billion and 3 billion.Ando’s Nissin Food Products has perfected a process to preserve cooked noodles. Fresh ramen is steamed, molded into blocks, dried, cooled and packaged. He improved flavor by packaging powdered soup mix separately from the brick of wavy noodles.
No longer limited to mild variations, ramen now comes in a variety of hot and spicy flavors.
The global noodle king produces more than four billion packs and cups a year and control 40 percents of the Japanese market and 10 percent of the world market. Nissin operates twenty-five plants in eight countries and uses shrimp from India and cabbage form China.
To conquer the world, Nissin has adapted its products to the peculiarities of foreign market. Shorter noodles are offered to accommodate forks rather than chopsticks.
The latest news said that Nissin spend 300 million dollars on entering Russian markets. He planned to buy around a one third in Russia’s LLC Mareven Food Central, which control 41 percent of Russia’s instant noodle market.
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