Instant noodles that Japanese eat 45.2 times a year per person

●Japan’s proud processed foods

The instant noodle is a food which has been popular after the World War II for about 60 years. Now, the market has grown to a scale of nearly 600 billion yen and has become an indispensable product for Japanese foods. The instant noodle spreads not only in Japan but also overseas, and is one of Japan’s proud processed foods.

NISSIN FOOD PRODUCTS CO., LTD launched “Chicken Ramen” in August 1958, which was the birth of the world first instant ramen. Similarly, the company launched “Cup Noodle” in September 1971, which was the first cup noodle product.

According to a survey by the Japan Instant Food Industry Association, total demands for instant noodles (total production) in 2019 (January-December) was about 5.6 billion meals. It was decrease of 148.37 million meals from the last year. Until the previous year, total demand had expanded for the fourth consecutive year, but it was the first decline in the five years.

Of these, bag noodles declined to about16.9 billion meals (down 4.2% from the last year) and cup noodles fell to 3.9 billion meals (down 1.8%). The total demands based on the shipment amount in 2018 was 125.3 billion yen for bag noodles (3.7% decrease compared to the previous year) and 468.2 billion yen for cup noodles (0.1% decrease compared to the last year), in total 593.6 billion yen (0.9% decrease compared to the last year) and the total amount stayed at a slight decrease. It was a step back when the market scale of 600 billion yen came into view.

According to the association, Japanese annually eats 45.2 meals per person and about 99.11 million meals are exported to the 50 countries. The instant noodles are annually consumed in 103.6 billion meals in the worldwide scale and is now regarded as food culture in the global scale as well as in Japan. It can be said that instant noodle have revolutionized the food culture as a product with wonderful conditions, such as “fast, easy, and delicious”.

Looking at the domestic market, the ratio of cup noodles is 70% while bag noodles is 30%. There are various categories, such as ramen(soup noodle), udon, soba (buckwheat noodle), somen, and yakisoba (fried noodle) for both cup and bag noodles, and various products such as fried noodles, non-fried noodles and raw noodles have been developed and put into the market.

In the market, not only products developed by the manufacturer but also the cup noodles which are produced by the popular ramen restaurants are expanded and create synergistic effects with the ramen culture.

Instant noodles are mainly just composed of noodles and soup. Therefore although they are completed as a single product, consumers can also add other food to eat them. Among them, cup noodles are often arranged and enjoyed by consumers themselves. For example, there are growing demands for arranging to their own taste, such as adding cheese or sesame oil, adding hot milk or tomato juice instead of hot water, and also there are some people prefer to eat cup noodle with longer waiting time than recommendation. The association also holds a recipe contest for mainly Japanese college students each year. The contest is working to expand the base of demand for instant noodles.

While the instant noodle industry offers brilliance by developing image characters and TV commercials that use entertainers, on the other hands it is inexpensive and has a long shelf life. It can be said that the product plays a major role for the Japanese lifeline in the event of natural disaster such as Earthquake or Typhoon. (Reported by Yoshihiro Kubo)

Original website / Language・Japanese
beyond2020特集：世界に伝える日本の食・国民食＝即席麺　6000億円規模に成長