Indomie Culltures Challange K-Pop

BCFOS -- For a man known to shy away from publicity, Anthoni Salim, chief executive of Indonesia’s largest foodmaker, was in a high spirits when he met the media for his annual question-and-answer session at company headquarters in Jakarta.

“If [South] Korea has K-Pop, we have Indomie,” Mr Salim declared, offering an unusual point of comparison for Indofood Sukses Makmur’s flagship instant noodles. It would not be much of a stretch to say the brand is known to every one of Indonesia’s 250m residents.

Indomie is less known outside the country but that is changing. Indofood, the core member of Indonesia’s Salim Group, is gaining a steady presence in emerging markets across the Middle East and Africa at a time when global rivals are hit by weak demand and regulatory hassles. Shares of Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur, Indofood’s key consumer products unit, reached a record high of 17,000 rupiah ($1.27) this month.

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