Nongshim founder Shin Chun-ho died on the morning of the 27th due to old age. 92 years old. Chairman Shin was born in Ulsan, Gyeongnam in 1930. Founded Nongshim in 1965, he led the company for 56 years. Chairman Shin made ramen and sweets that the people can enjoy all his life. Shin Ramyun, the representative work, is exported to more than 100 countries around the world and is called a food diplomat. He founded a 2 trillion won company with 5 million won and was respected as a’first-generation venture person’ in the food industry.
“If you work with a farming mind, there is nothing you can’t achieve.”
Chairman Shin made’Nongshim Haeng-no-saengsa’ as his management philosophy. It means that if you work with a farming mind, there is nothing you can’t achieve. He believed in the sublimeness of the sweat of honest and sincere sweat. As a farmer plowing the land in the providence of nature, he achieved today’s Nongshim with a new challenge and mission.
Chairman Shin was an executive tolerant of failure. It was believed that failure did not end with failure, but was meant to teach the wisdom of no longer failing and how to deal with failure. This is the background that is considered the secret that mega-hit products for over 30 years are firmly established in long-lived companies over 50 years. Nongshim, which ranked first in the domestic ramen market in 1985, has become synonymous with’K Food’ on the world stage with Shin Ramyun.
Chairman Shin was a 92-year-old senior manager, but until recently, he had taken care of the company’s issues. Last year, Nongshim retired in February as its main business at home and abroad reached a record high and all of its major businesses were on a stable uptrend. Recently, he had been treated with dialysis with his family due to old age, but it is said that he did not forget to ask for the future of the company until the end.
“Fail”… The ramen kingdom achieved by’tuck-shim management’
Chairman Shin said, the half-century management principle is summarized as’Woobo Man-ri’. Since the first development of Lotte Ramyun in 1965, it has adhered to the principle of’the essence of the food industry is taste and quality’. It was said that a 100-year-old company can be achieved only if it has the quality competitiveness of the essence of the product rather than fancy advertising and marketing. In the 1970s and 1980s, longevity products that made Nongshim were poured out. Ramen products such as beef ramen, raccoon, yukgaejang bowl noodles, chapaghetti, shin ramen, and Anseongtang noodles, and snack products such as shrimp crackers, potato crackers, onion rings, and honey beetroot are staple sellers that have been on the market for 20 years at the time.
Chairman Shin is also famous for creating all of Nongshim’s product names, as it is called’Jaming King’ in-house. Last year, Nongshim’s sales increased 12.6% from the previous year to KRW 2.639.8 trillion, and operating profit increased by 103.4% to KRW 163.6 billion. Overseas sales exceeded 1 trillion won for the first time ever.
50 years of research on noodle technology …Leaving the’essence’ of the food industry
Chairman Shin, the younger brother of the late Honorary Chairman Shin Gyeok-ho, is a figure who founded Lotte Industrial despite his elder brother’s pressure while serving as a director of Lotte Japan. Since high school, I have been studying and doing business. While doing business in the Busan International Market and Jagalchi Market, he failed to sell out-of-date rice cheaply. That experience became the background for my lifelong quality management.
It is investment and technology development that has made Nongshim the No. 1 company. In 1965, the first ramen production year, the Ramen Research Institute was established. With Seoul’s Daebang Plant as the parent, Anyang Plant, Busan Sasang Plant, and Gumi Plant were built as cutting-edge food production bases, and large-scale factories were built in the US and China, which are major overseas countries.
Chairman Shin, who believes technology is quality and innovation, has been telling employees since 2010 that “food is an era where only luxury goods are sold. We have to make products that can satisfy demanding consumers.” He also emphasized, “If the past 50 years in the ramen industry were soup competition, noodle-making technology will dictate the next 50 years,” he said. “If you don’t know anything else, do not fall behind in the competition for R&D competency.” Innovative products such as Tjawang and Matjjambong (2015), which caused the craze for thick noodles, and Shin Ramyun dried noodles (2019), which led the second heyday of Shin Ramyun, were the result of this strategy. At the time, researchers were using rice flour, which is part of the coarse noodles, for 5 years, to lower the cost, but they heard a bad command from Chairman Shin, “The quality comes from good raw materials. Please review the project completely.”
There are many cases of success in businesses other than ramen by investing in the essence of the food industry. Nongshim’s products are accompanied by a lot of the modifier’first’. It was the result of numerous challenges such as Korea’s first snack Shrimp Cracker, which was produced after thousands of failures with 80 trucks of wheat flour, Korea’s first rice noodle and dried noodle patent technology, and Korea’s first jajang ramen.
Creating and leaving the’muscle’ of a global company
Chairman Shin’s eyes have always been towards the global. Nongshim is being evaluated for having a corporate culture that prepares technology and infrastructure rather than just pursuing changes in front of it. The production facilities were also prepared in advance in consideration of future demand. The same goes for overseas expansion.
Since the 1980s, Chairman Shin has been driving exports by saying, “Make Shin Ramyun visible wherever you go in the world.” For this reason, it is the first and most aggressive domestic food company to enter overseas. Ramen was first exported in 1971. It has been 6 years since it was founded. Since then, the eyes of Nongshim have always turned to the world stage. They sell’Shin Ramyun’ from the road in Antarctica to the highest peak in the Alps.
In 1981, a local office was opened in Tokyo, Japan, and in 1996, the first overseas factory was established in Shanghai, China. After increasing the number of factories in China to three, it built a factory in Los Angeles (LA) in the United States in 2005. The first plant in the United States, which is currently operating more than 90%, is currently building a second plant in western California with the goal of completion this year due to insufficient supply. Nongshim exports ramen to more than 100 countries around the world, including establishing corporations in Australia and Vietnam. Nongshim sold Shin Ramyun to the top of the sky and to the ends of the earth as a’silhouette strategy’. It has advanced to the mountain trails of Mont Blanc, Switzerland’s highest peak, the Jungfrau summit observatory, Punta Arenas near the Magellan Strait in South America, Chile, the Matterhorn in Switzerland and Niagara Falls in Canada, and the duty-free shop at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Rome, Italy.
Although the overseas performance was slow, it steadily led to’super-gap competitiveness’. Nongshim’s ramen exports exceeded $100 million in 2004 and $500 million in 2015. Last year, Nongshim achieved approximately 40% of its total sales, or 1.1 trillion won, in overseas markets such as the US and China. Nongshim’s overseas sales target this year was set higher than the previous year by more than 15%. Overseas sales this year are expected to account for more than 50% of total sales.
Half a lifetime of growing up with farmers
At the root of becoming a global company, there is also a win-win relationship with domestic farmers. Chairman Shin completely separated from the Lotte Group and changed the company name to’Nongshim’ in 1978 and started a second business, saying, “It contains the heart of making agricultural products, which is the basis of food.” Nongshim is still actively sticking with domestic acacia honey, Wando kelp, and domestic potatoes for confectionery and ramen products.
Nongshim has purchased more than 400 tons of domestic kelp per year for raccoon production. Since the launch of the raccoon in 1982, the manufacturing method using the highest quality kelp has been continued until now. The total amount of kelp purchased by Nongshim so far exceeds 17,000 tons. The kelp that Nongshim buys annually is the largest in the domestic food industry, accounting for 15% of the annual dried kelp production in Wando.
Over 8000 tons of natural domestic acacia honey have been used in the honey pretzel, a longevity product in the snack market. Nongshim uses 25% of the annual production of acacia honey in Korea. It was because of Chairman Shin’s principle, “Use domestic honey, which is more expensive than sugar, but has superior taste and nutrition.”
Nongshim, which has been making potato chips using domestic potatoes, recently launched a win-win program to expand the market for young farmers. The goal is to pay advance payments through a pre-sowing contract, and to provide farm management education and quality control together.
An official from Nongshim said, “It was Chairman Shin’s philosophy that we should actively utilize domestic agricultural products to protect the basis of the food industry.”
Vinso is the first room at the funeral hall of Seoul National University Hospital in Jongno-gu, Seoul, and the deadline is on the 30th. Jangji is Sunyeong, Miryang, Gyeongnam.
Reporter Bora Kim [email protected]