Nongshim said on March 18 that Chapaghetti, riding the craze for Chapaguri in the movie "Parasite," recorded $1.5 million in overseas sales in February. The record is 120 percent growth year-on-year, the biggest monthly performance.
Nongshim also received love calls from countries that did not sell Chapaghetti, and started exporting them to Chile, Bahrain, Palau and Sudan, increasing the number of exporting countries to 70.
An official for Nongshim's overseas sales said, "Consumers in countries where Chapaghetti is not available have asked us to sell Chapaghetti to local supermarkets after hearing about Chapaguri SNS videos."
Nongshim previously introduced Chapaguri recipes in 11 languages through YouTube channels after the parasite won the Academy Award.
The United States has the largest overseas sales of Chapaghetti. As of February this year, sales in the U.S. hit $700,000, followed by China with $220,000, Australia with $190,000, Japan with $100,000 and Vietnam with $70,000.
"Originally, overseas traders who had been looking for Shin Ramen are now looking for Chapaghetti and Neoguri together," a Nongshim official said. "Chapaghetti has become competitive as a K-food representative following Shin Ramen."
“The company also aims to achieve its first-ever annual sales of 200 billion won as its domestic sales of Chapaghetti exceeded 37 billion won in the January-February period,” the Nongshim official added.
