Nongshim, South Korea's largest processed food manufacturer, said on September 24 that it had officially exported Zha Wang to the US market. Leveraging its strong business networks that Nongshim built on the back of Shin Ramyun’s popularity, Nongshim plans to expand sales of Zha Wang (noodles with black bean sauce) across the US.
Zha Wang made landfall in the US as its explosive popularity on home turf spread by word of mouth and social networking sites. The word-of-mouth and viral marketing has spawned a craze for Zha Wang, thereby making it a must-buy item for foreign tourists and Korean Americans. As a matter of fact, Korean-run stores in the US have received numerous phone calls asking if Zha Wang is in stock.
Earlier this month, Nongshim first shipped 15,000 boxes of Zha Wang to the US and shipped an additional 15,000 boxes again before the first batch of Zha Wang arrived in the US as orders kept pouring in.
Zha Wang has been selling in LA since the fourth week of September. Nongshim said that Zha Wang would hit stores in New York starting from October.
Nongshim is also set to put Zha Wang on Wal-Mart store shelves across the US at an earlier date. It is scheduled to supply to the US’s major distributors, such as Wal-Mart, Costco and Sams’s Club. In 2013, Nongshim became the first Korean food company to strike a deal with Wal-Mart.
“Unlike the Chinese and Japanese markets, dominated by their own ramen brands, the US ramen market has been carved up mainly between Korean and Japanese ramen makers. Thus, our entry into the US market is very meaningful. We will supply the US market with Zha Wang that tastes exactly the same as that selling in the domestic market so as to lead the market for new premium noodles with black bean sauce and differentiate ourselves from Japanese rivals,” said an official from Nongshim.
In October, Nongshim will kick off a Zha Wang marketing campaign in the US via various advertising channels, such as TV, radio and newspapers.
