South Korean food company Nongshim is planning to invest $143m in a “K-Food hub” in the southern city of Busan. The move is part of a drive among the country’s largest food producers to capitalise on ever-rising global demand for dehydrated Korean ready-meals.
The export-only plant will make Shin Ramyun, a kind of instant noodles that Nongshim has been making since 1987, as well as its close relatives Neoguri and Chapagetti.
The company announced on Sunday that it would break ground on the factory in the first half of next year, with plans to begin full-scale operations in the second half of 2026.
The 51,000 sq m facility will be built on a vacant lot adjacent to its existing factory in the Noksan National Industrial Complex, one of six in the Korean peninsula. The construction costs are to be met by issuing bonds.
It will have three state-of-the-art production lines capable of producing 500 million packs of ramyun annually, matching the output of its existing Busan factory. The surge in demand prompted Nongshim to add production lines to that plant over the past two years, but the company has now decided a dedicated export facility is necessary
When complete, Nongshim will be able to export 2.7 billion packs of dried noodles a year. This includes the company’s US and China subsidiaries, which produce 1 billion and 700 million packs a year respectively.
When combined with domestic production, Nongshim’s total capacity will exceed 6 billion packs.
Nongshim also plans to establish a European subsidiary in early 2025 as well as expanding into South America, Africa, and Oceania.
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