Mutiny of ’white-hot’ noodles

By Kim Tong-hyung

Nongshim controls the country’s instant noodle market the way fat kids hoard its ramen cups. The recent release of a new ramen that departs from the traditional flavors and heat that define the brand indicate pesky smaller rivals are beginning to get into the company’s head.

In cementing its dominance in the ramen market for decades, Nongshim has been consistent in its attempts to ``shock-and-awe’’ local taste buds. Most of the company’s iconic products, such as Shin Ramen, Anseongtangmyeon and Neoguri, are distinguished by red and peppery broths that intend to please taste buds as much as inflict pain on them.

However, the increasing sales of Korea Yakult’s Kkokkomyeon and Samyang’s Nagasaki Jjamppongmyeon suggest that consumers are beginning to respond to a different class of ramen based on freshness and milder flavors. Sales in recent months show the two products are eating into the market share of Shin Ramen, the industry’s perennial top-seller, ringing the alarm louder at Nongshim’s headquarters.

Both released this summer, Kkokkomyeon, inspired by Korean chicken soup, and Nagasaki Jjamppongmyeon, a pre-cooked version of the famous Japanese seafood noodles, couldn’t look and taste more different than Nongshim’s traditional heavyweights.

The milky-white broths of these instant noodles perhaps match the blanched faces of Nongshim executives, who wonder whether consumers are beginning to tire of the company’s smash-mouth style.

Nongshim apparently decided to find out. According to industry sources, the company is ready to release its own ``white ramen’’ in the coming months, seafood-flavored noodles thought to echo Nagasaki Jjamppongmyeon in style. The new product will be released in three versions ― hot, mildly hot and mild ― as the company intends to hedge its bets in consumer trends.

Nongshim has rarely dabbled with non-red ramen, aside from a few exceptions like Sarigomtangmyeon, flavored after Korean ox-bone soup, and Jjapaghetti, Chinese-style black sauce noodles.

``We know that Nongshim has already finished product development and is carefully timing the release of the new ramen. It seems that Nongshim officials are bothered by the snickering that the company has become desperate enough to mimic the flavors of its smaller competitors and that could be one of the reasons why they are hesitating a bit,’’ said a spokesman from one of Nongshm’s rivals.

``A white-broth ramen released by Nongshim, however, will clearly be something to be reckoned with. The company is still the market’s No. 1 player by a wide margin and will be looking to exploit its unmatchable manufacturing power to crush other products by sheer strength.’’

As every year, Shin Ramen controlled more than 20 percent of ramen sales at E-Mart, the country’s largest discount retailer, before Kokkomyeon and Nagasaki Jjamppongmyeon were released in July and August respectively.

Since then, Shin Ramen’s share dropped all the way down to the early teens, according to E-Mart’s November numbers, finding itself in a neck-and-neck race with Nagasaki Jjamppongmyeon at 13.5 percent. Kkokkomyeon’s share is approaching 10 percent, a threshold it might have long passed if Yakult, the smallest of the three ramen makers, had better manufacturing muscles.

It bears further watching whether white-broth ramen is here to stay or a gimmick destined to fade. Kkokkomyeon and Nagasaki Jjamppongmyeon have impressed for the last five months, but Nongshim has dominated for over five decades.

And it could be said that Kkokkomyeon owes much of its popularity to television funnyman Lee Kyung-kyu, who first unveiled the recipe in an amateur ramen contest broadcast on KBS and later sold the rights to Korea Yakult.

Kkokkomyeon quickly became somewhat of a cult hit, with Lee’s star power and scarce supplies, due to Korea Yakult’s lack in suitable manufacturing ability, making it the iPhone of ramen here. It’s too early to tell whether Kkokkomyeon consumers have been hooked by taste or curiosity.

``Kkokkomyeon tastes good enough, but I don’t think it has an addictive edge to it as Shin Ramen has,’’ said Choi, a 34-year-old office worker in Seoul.

Despite the buzz generated by its rivals Samyang and Korea Yakult, Nongshim remains the undisputed kingpin of the ramen industry and reminded everyone else of that when it raised the prices of Shin Ramen and Anseongtangmyeon by more than 6 percent this month.

Although Nongshim claims the hike was inevitable due to rising costs, the explanation was an insult to the intelligence of anyone paying attention. The price of wheat, the main ingredient of instant noodles, has declined by more than 40 percent from its 2008 peak, according to market statistics.

With Shin Ramen and Anseongtangmyeon selling less than before as a result of the emergence of whiter foes, Nongshim is looking to recover the fall in revenue simply by charging more for their products, observers say. This shows that, when a company controls nearly 70 percent of a market in a ``down’’ year, it could essentially do whatever it wants regardless of consumers’ hunger pangs.