Nongshim
Co., Ltd.

Contents

Our new client, Nongshim, is the company behind Shin Ramyun and South Korea's largest instant noodle and snack maker. It enters 2026 as the leader at home and a clear beneficiary of the global K-food wave, yet its next phase of growth now depends on markets outside Korea rather than inside it. That is the headline for the team to hold onto.

The headline picture is steady top line growth with stronger profitability. Revenue rose from KRW 3.44 trillion in 2024 to KRW 3.51 trillion in 2025, while operating profit climbed almost 13 percent, driven mainly by overseas subsidiaries in China and Japan even as domestic demand softened.¹⁸ The strategic conclusion is direct. Korea is a defend and optimize market. The United States, Europe, and selected emerging markets are the build and win markets.

A competitive wake up call sharpens the case. In 2024 Samyang Foods, carried by its viral Buldak line, overtook Nongshim in overseas sales for the first time, ending a long run as Korea's top ramen exporter. Management has responded by targeting a rise in the overseas sales ratio from about 37 percent in 2024 to 61 percent by 2030, inside a 2030 revenue goal of roughly KRW 7 trillion.¹⁹²⁰

What this means for our team

• Index our work on international markets, the United States, Europe, and emerging markets, rather than domestic Korea, since that is where the client is putting its growth.⁹¹⁰¹¹
• Support the move upmarket. Positioning and creative should reinforce premium and health led ranges and help shed the cheap food image.⁸
• Lean into culture led marketing. K-pop and film and television tie ins are a proven lane for this brand and a natural home for our ideas.⁸¹³
• Frame the competitive job to be done as closing the United States gap to Toyo Suisan while answering Samyang's overseas surge.⁶¹²²⁰

Nongshim is South Korea's largest instant noodle and snack company and one of the most recognizable food brands in Asia. Founded in 1965, the company built its position on two products that became cultural staples, Shrimp Crackers and Shin Ramyun, and has since grown into a multinational operating across more than 100 countries with production in Korea, the United States, and China.⁹ The operating model is vertically integrated, combining in house product development, owned manufacturing, and a controlled distribution network.

FY2025 delivered modest revenue growth and a stronger profit profile. Consolidated revenue reached KRW 3.51 trillion, an increase of 2.2 percent over the prior year, while operating profit rose 12.8 percent to KRW 183.9 billion.¹² Margin expansion mattered more than volume this year. The growth came disproportionately from overseas subsidiaries, with China and Japan offsetting a soft domestic backdrop.⁸

Revenue mix

Overseas accounted for about 37 percent of sales in 2024, with domestic providing the rest.¹⁹ Management has set a target to lift the overseas share to 61 percent by 2030, which is why capacity investment is now concentrated outside the home market.¹⁹²⁰

Overseas momentum

Overseas instant noodle sales have risen steadily, supported by the post pandemic appetite for Korean food and added United States capacity.³¹² Korean ramyun exports nationally reached USD 1.3 billion in 2024 and USD 1.4 billion by November 2025.⁸

Nongshim holds two very different competitive positions. At home it is the dominant leader with roughly 56 percent of the instant noodle market.⁵ In the United States it sits second with about a quarter of the market, behind Japan's Toyo Suisan, which holds close to half.⁶ The clearest single growth objective for the company is to close that United States gap.

The category is large and still growing

The global instant noodle market was worth roughly USD 63 billion in 2025 and is forecast to reach about USD 83 billion by 2029 at a compound rate near 7 percent, with more bullish estimates putting it close to USD 100 billion by 2030.⁷⁸ Asia Pacific remains the dominant region, but the fastest brand building opportunities for Nongshim sit in Western markets where Korean noodles have moved from niche to mainstream.¹⁴

A direct competitive challenge

The sharpest development is at home. In 2024 Samyang Foods, powered by its viral Buldak line, overtook Nongshim in overseas sales for the first time, ending Nongshim's long standing position as Korea's top ramen exporter. Across the first three quarters of 2025 Nongshim's overseas sales were about KRW 1.03 trillion against Samyang's KRW 1.37 trillion.²⁰ Trade policy adds pressure, since a 15 percent United States tariff on Korean noodles has already weighed on shipment growth.²⁰ The strategic response is the export factory, the new product lines, and the marketing push detailed in section 5.

Competitive set

Four engines should carry growth in 2026. They are global manufacturing and market expansion, premiumization, the health and plant based platform, and culture led marketing. Each is already in motion and each needs sharper resourcing.

5.1 Global manufacturing and market expansion

Capacity is the gating factor for international growth. The second United States plant in Rancho Cucamonga, opened in 2022, lifted North American capacity from 500 million to 850 million units and unlocked roughly 40 percent annual sales growth in its first phase.¹⁰ A new export only hub at Busan Noksan, due to begin full operations in the second half of 2026, is designed to supply Europe, Southeast Asia, and other distant markets from Korea.¹¹ A third United States plant in the eastern United States remains under review, with timing sensitive to construction and labor costs.¹⁰

Manufacturing network at a glance

On the demand side, the company established a European sales subsidiary in early 2025 to coordinate marketing across the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and the Nordics, and is targeting Southern European entry in Spain and Italy.¹¹¹² It is building export focused products around the flagship, including Shin Ramyun Toomba in 2024 and Shin Ramyun Kimchi Stir-Fried Noodles in 2025, both tuned to overseas palates.²⁰ Mexico, Brazil, India, the Middle East, and Oceania are named next horizons.¹¹²⁰

5.2 Premiumization

Korean instant noodles are shedding their cheap food reputation, and Nongshim is using that shift to lift price and margin.⁸ Shin Ramyun Black anchors the premium tier, and in early 2026 the company launched Shin Ramyun Gold with a chicken based broth to mark the flagship's fortieth anniversary.⁸ The strategic value of premiumization is margin protection at a time when wheat and palm oil costs remain volatile.

5.3 Health and plant based platform

Health is now a portfolio pillar rather than a niche. The company sells a fully plant based Shin Ramyun and the Vegan Society certified Soon Veggie Ramyun, alongside low sodium variants.¹⁸ Beyond noodles, the Veggie Garden brand offers plant based meat alternatives, sauces, and the first Korean vegan cheese, and the Forest Kitchen restaurant in Seoul has become a credibility platform for the plant based agenda, drawing a majority of foreign visitors.¹⁵ This platform answers the category's most persistent criticism, sodium and processed content, while opening a younger and more values driven consumer base.

5.4 Culture led marketing

The Hallyu wave remains Nongshim's most efficient awareness driver abroad. Chapagetti became globally famous through the film Parasite, and that playbook is now deliberate rather than accidental.¹⁴ The girl group aespa is Shin Ramyun's first overseas brand ambassador and is promoting the export focused Shin Ramyun Toomba, and in 2025 the company launched product tie ins with a major Netflix animated release and its fictional K-pop group.⁸¹³²⁰ The recommendation is to treat entertainment partnerships as a standing capability with a dedicated budget, not as opportunistic campaigns.

The brand rests on a simple emblem and a single dominant color. The corporate mark, known as the Nongshim Seed, uses two ellipses to express agility and growth, and was introduced in 1991.¹⁷ Red is the company's primary color, chosen to signal the benefits of bright and abundant nature and the sincerity of the people behind the products.¹⁷

The portfolio spans four pillars. Instant noodles remain the core, led by Shin Ramyun and its premium and regional spin offs, with Tonkotsu now the second best seller in the United States.¹² Snacks anchor a heritage category built on Shrimp Crackers. Beverages center on the Baeksansu premium water line. The newest pillar, health and plant based, is the strategic growth area.¹⁵¹⁸

Product images company-provided.

Innovation runs on two tracks, product and operations. On product, the company combines air dried noodle formats for a healthier profile with fusion flavors tuned to local markets, supported by R&D led consumer research, surveys, and regional focus groups. On operations, Nongshim is extending artificial intelligence and IoT across its smart factories to raise efficiency and reduce defects.¹⁰

New business and food tech

The company is also investing beyond its core. Through the techUP+ accelerator and a food tech fund commitment of about USD 7.4 million with external venture partners, it is backing startups in smart farming and cultivated meat.¹⁶ It has signed smart farm export deals with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to grow Korean strawberry varieties year round, a venture valued in the tens of millions of dollars.¹⁶ These moves diversify the business and hedge long term exposure to the noodle category.

The SWOT below frames where the company is strong, where it is exposed, and where to act. The strategic thread is consistent. Strengths and opportunities both point outward, toward international markets and premium and health positioned ranges, while the most serious weaknesses and threats cluster around category concentration, input costs, and rising competition.

A one page snapshot for fast onboarding. Keep this handy when scoping work or briefing collaborators.