05 Jan 2009
Posted by YuanHao 
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Say you’re hungry , it’s late at night and you don’t feel like cooking anything. If you walk to the closest convenience store, you’ll probably find some instant ramen. Ranging from $0.1 to $5, depending on where you are, you’ll find that ramen is cheap, very easy to prepare, and fills your stomach just nice.
Have you ever stopped to think of ramen as a growing and prosperous industry? Well, what you ate last night contributes to one of the 85 billion servings of instant noodles consumed every year (yes, you read it right). That’s about 13 servings a year for every human being living on Earth. But of course, not everyone eats the same amount of ramen, right?
Instant Ramen Demand (by country)
Fortunately, information about ramen production is available, and I came up with this little chart:
Source: International Ramen Manufacturers Association
As expected, China consumes about 50% of all the ramen in the world. I expected Japan to be on the second place, but Indonesia (with somewhat less than two times the population of Japan) has a distant second place.
More fun facts
- Instant noodles are very popular with college students.
- More than 75% of all ramen is consumed in Asia alone. India does not contribute greatly to this percentage though, consuming only 1 ramen serving per capita each year.
- Ramen demand in China doubled from the year 2001 to the year 2005.
- South Korea has one of the highest consumption per capita — about 70 servings per year.
- Modern Instant Ramen was invented in Japan by a Taiwanese-born entrepreneur.
- Ramen can be use as an economic indicator (like the Big Mac index) in many countries of Asia.
- Instant Ramen is available almost anywhere in the world!
Bottom line: Although most of us don’t take ramen very seriously, it is a very strong industry even in the East, with the US, Russia, Brazil, and Mexico among the top 15 consumers. So next time you go shopping, don’t forget to take a serving or two home! What’s your take on ramen, do you contribute to this growing industry?
4 Comments
did u take the pic up top at the Shanghai carrefour in zhongshan park?
In Indonesia alone, eating local instant noodle is a culture, from when you were little and busy parents fed you without knowing the dangerous of preservatives. Indomie is the most famous instant noodle and it was very cheap like 0.25- 0.30 yen in supermarket… We also love Japanese and Korean instant noodle which is 5-6 times more expensive and considered it “healthier” if was said no MSG and 0 trans fat on the packaging.
Yes, we love instant noodle not because of poor but we just love it ^_^
I’m still questioning the “dangers” of instant ramen, since I’ve been eating them for a long time and the creator who lived many years claimed that he ate them DAILY. Wow that’s cheap! I eat mostly Korean brands, the ones that taste the best in my opinion ^^
I think all asians love it — i definitely love instant ramen =)
Dude, I owe my present existence to ramen noodles and a working stovetop. I swear as a child I ate ramen like three meals a week. When I was a teen, nearly every lunch was ramen-based if I didn’t eat out. My insides are probably either green and glowing or pickled with MSG.
LONG LIVE THE INSTANT NOODLE!