Stiff competition forces noodle manufacturers to find new ways to go Instant noodle manufacturers now tend to make instant products of rice instead of noodles. Experts believe that the current instant noodle war would be followed by the rice vermicelli and rice-sourced instant products.   New products will save manufacturers Vina Acecook, Vinaly, Bich Chi, Asia Food, Binh Tay, Colusa-Miliket, Masan and Vifon have launched into the market some 70 products made of rice flour Analysts have noted that the instant noodle market’s growth has been slowing down in recent years to 5 percent. However, the demand for instant products keeps rising, which has prompted the manufacturers to make instant products from rice. Most of the instant noodle manufacturers have been marching towards the rice-made instant product market, which is believed to be less stiff than the instant noodle market. A lot of enterprises have reported the higher revenue from rice-made instant products than from instant noodles. Meanwhile, developing rice-made products can help diversify products, thus allowing boosting the sales in the context of the weak market demand. Colusa-Miliket, for example, has begun making profit after some years of taking loss thanks to the diversification of its products. In 2010, the company used 10,000 tons of rice to make rice-made instant noodles for the domestic consumption and export. Vina Acecook has reported the 10 percent increase in the output of the instant products made of rice. Vifon was once considered a big instant noodle producer with the annual revenue of trillions of dong, but its revenue dropped dramatically in the last two years to VND8 billion, just equal to 1/5 of the revenue of two years ago and much lower than that of Collusa-Miliket or Ve Wong. In an effort to rescue itself and exist in a competitive market, Vifon has been focusing on the rice-made instant product market segment. The enterprise is believed to hold 50 percent of the rice-made instant product market. The market share re-divided Le Van Hung, Marketing Director of Vina Acecook, noted that the demand for rice-made products has been increasing sharply thanks to the cultural exchange among people from different localities. The cultural exchange has made people’s taste diversified, and they tend to accept the traditional dishes sourced from other localities. It is now a growing tendency of consumers to use the products made of rice, because these are non-frying products. Meanwhile, manufacturers also prefer making products with rice, the material which can be easily found from domestic sources. The recent reports all show the significant increase in the demand for rice-made products in the world. Therefore, the products can not only be sold well in the domestic market, but also can be exported to Czech, Slovakia, Hungary and the markets which set high requirements on food safety such as the US, Australia, France, Germany, Canada and Hong Kong. In Vietnam, the rice made products, though being more expensive than instant noodles, considered as high grade instant products, still have been selling well at supermarkets. At Co-op mart chain, the instant products made of rice flour just accounted for 10 percent of the total sold products three years ago, but now account for nearly 50 percent. A report of Euromonitor showed that the three biggest instant noodle manufacturers are Vina Acecook, Asia Food and Masan which hold 51.5 percent, 12.1 percent and 16.5 percent of the market share, respectively. Source: DNSG