The 5th World Ramen Summit
Dates：April 11 (Tue)–12 (Wed), 2006
Venue : Seoul (Korea)
- Overview
- Declaration
- Photo
Collection
Overview
Happy World with Ramen!
Dates
April 11 (Tue)–12 (Wed), 2006
Venue
Grand InterContinental Seoul
Host
Nong Shim Co.,Ltd.
The 5th "World Ramen Summit" was held in Seoul, Korea, hosted by Nong Shim Co., Ltd. It was a big event where major manufacturers of instant noodles gathered in the instant noodle superpower, which leads the world in annual consumption of instant noodles per capita. Following a breakfast meeting consisting of top executives of each country, an official meeting attended by about 60 delegations from around the world was held on the first day. Many guests, including Mr. Park, Chairman of Korea Foods Industry Association, and Mr. Oshima, Japanese ambassador to South Korea were invited to the forum held on the second day. The forum included lectures by six celebrities, including the former Minister of Education of Korea, professor emeritus at Seoul University and others.
Program
Day 1
●Council Meeting
●World Ramen Summits
Opening Ceremony
Handover Ceremony
Secretariat Report
Report from Technical Committee of IRMA
TV Commercial Film Festival
Country Reports
Seoul Declaration
Day 2
●World Ramen Conference
Presentation of Donation to Korea Red Cross
【Lecture 1】 Instant Ramen and Culture
Mr, O-Young Lee. Former Minister of Culture Mr, Ryo Sasaki. Journalist of The Asahi Shimbun. Japan
【Special Lecture】 The 10 Principles for Strategies
Dr, Byung-Nak Song. Professor Emeritus of Seoul National University/ Joint Representative of Citizens United For Better Society
【Lecture 2】
The Safety & Nutritious Value of Ramen
Dr, Wan Seob Noh. Professor of Dongguk University
【Lecture 3】 Future of Ramen
Dr. Suck-Chul Yoon, Chair Professorvof Hanyang University/ Professor Emeritus of Seoul National University
Mr. Koki Ando, President of Nissin Food Products Co., Ltd, Japan
The Seoul Declaration
●Joint Press Conference
Event Report
Summit
In the official meeting attended by 60 delegations from each country, the Chief of Technical Committee made a report on food safety concerns, and participants had a lively exchange of views on world aggregate demand in 2005, establishment of "The Ramen Fund for Disaster Relief", and the "Declaration of Seoul". A wide variety of events were held, including a report session where representatives reported on the current situation or issues of their local markets for instant noodles, a commercial film contest where each company displayed its proud commercial messages.
Exhibition
Visitors really enjoyed rare products showcased at the booths of each country and commercial messages on monitors. Many visitors took company brochures, hoping to create ties for their future business.
Forum
On behalf of the IRMA, Chairman Momofuku Ando and Director General Sang Yoon Lee presented a list of 150 thousand servings of instant noodles for the Korean Red Cross in front of approximately 300 attendees. After that, six celebrities, including former Minister of Education of Korea, professor emeritus at Seoul University who attended from home and abroad delivered lectures. Also, Director General Sang Yoon Lee declared the implementation of creating high quality products based on CODEX, the establishment of "The Ramen Fund for Disaster Relief", and mutual cooperation for securing food safety.
Joint Press Conference
A large number of press people from leading Korean national newspapers and news agencies, and reporters from TV stations gathered for the conference as instant noodles have become a part of the people's diet in Korea with an annual consumption of more than 70 servings per capita. A lot of foreign media, including Japanese, also assembled at the conference.
※The title is that of the time.
Seoul Declaration
CODEX : The First Year of Global Standard Ramen
Ramen, now a popular food enjoyed by people around the globe, was first introduced to public by Mr. Momofuku Ando, IRMA Chairman, in 1958. As of 2005, approximately 86 billion ramen was consumed meaning that one person enjoyed 13 servings of ramen per year in view of the fact that the total population equals 6.5 billion.
Easy preparation, good taste and low cost are some primary factors contributing to the significant growth of ramen sales. The average annual consumption of ramen is increasing by more than 13% since 2000, and 100 billion ramen would be expected to be sold in 2009.
International Ramen Manufactures Association (IRMA) has been at the forefront of ramen industry since its foundation in March 1997 with the vision of bringing technological advancement and realizing smooth collaboration among member countries. IRMA well understands that sustainable development in the ramen industry can be achieved through a system of interaction and cooperation.
IRMA supported and made effort to establish CODEX Global Standard for Ramen. The Standard will be adopted in The CODEX Alimentarius Commission (General Meeting) on July 2006. This means Ramen will be authorized as Global Food and considerable increase of ramen trade can be expected. This is "The First Year of Global Standard Ramen".
IRMA is playing a huge role in international relief activities, being a helping hand to thousands of people suffering from natural disasters. Recently, we have made ramen donations to the critical areas suffering from unexpected disasters such as Tsunami in Indian Ocean area, Hurricane Katrina & Rita and the Pakistan Earthquake. To cope with this practice, At The 5th World Ramen Summit, 156,000 servings of ramen will be delivered to the Korean Red Cross to be used for people in need.
As mentioned above, IRMA is expanding its horizons as authorized international organization with the development of the ramen industry.
The 5th World Ramen Summit attended by delegates and manufacturers from 10 countries around the world has concluded successfully under the theme "Happy World with Ramen!". We hereby would like to contribute to the ramen industry and world peace through these promises below.
- We will continuously strive to practice the highest standards of research to improve the quality and nutritional value of ramen products for a healthy balanced diet, in view of CODEX Global Standard.
- We will play a more active role in making donations for the love of mankind, especially for the people suffering from unexpected disasters and starvation by poverty. So, we will newly establish “The Ramen Fund for Disaster Relief”.
- We will exchange information and cooperate each other concerning food safety in order to secure stable and sustainable growth of ramen industry as a whole.
