Instant noodle maker Nongshim eyes 3rd plant in US

South Korean instant noodle giant Nongshim Co. is looking to build its third manufacturing plant in the US as the company is seeing sales of its products, including its signature noodles Shin Ramyun, surge in the country. 

Nongshim Chairman Shin Dong-won announced the plan in the general meeting of shareholders on Thursday, noting that the plant is highly likely to be constructed in the eastern US. The company will develop details of the plan by the end of this year or early 2024, he added.   

In the US, the company is running two plants in Rancho Cucamonga, California. It established a first plant in 2005 and a second one last year, which bring the aggregate production to 850 million units of ramyun, or Korean instant noodles, per year.

The instant noodle maker’s US affiliate saw its revenue reach $490 million in 2022, up 24% on-year. The sales growth in the US outperformed Nongshim’s entire global revenue increase of 9% last year.

The new plant will become Nongshim’s seventh overseas manufacturing facility. Outside the US, it runs food plants in Shanghai, Qingdao and Shenyang as well as a mineral water Baeksansu production plant in Yanbian, China.

Nongshim’s three major strategies for this year are global sales expansion, improvement of management efficiency and business portfolio diversification, CEO Lee Byung-hak said in the shareholders meeting. 

The company will also accelerate acquisitions of food makers to create synergy in its businesses, the CEO added. Last year, Nongshim considered acquiring Chunho Food Co., a local functional food company that supplies extracts of black goats, black garlic and red ginseng, but dropped the plan due to discrepancies in valuation.

Nongshim’s revenue jumped 17.5% on-year to 3.1 trillion won ($2.4 billion) in 2022, with half coming from the overseas market. Its operating profit rose 5.6% to 112.2 billion won last year. 

Write to Soo-Jung Ha at agatha77@hankyung.com

Jihyun Kim edited this article.