Hot Take

20 years ago there was only one ramen offering on Costco's shelves. Today I counted at least a half-dozen Asian dried noodle products.

Unfortunately, my increasingly sensitive digestive system won't allow me to sample most of them, especially Samyang's Buldak Ramen: [bold added]

Now, [Kim Jung-soo] is CEO.

Behind the 59-year-old’s rise is the unlikely success of a brand of instant ramen she created herself. The noodles are so spicy that many people can’t eat them. Today, packages of the company’s “Buldak” noodles—literally “fire chicken” in Korean—have landed on the American shelves of Costco, Walmart and Albertsons. They will soon arrive in Kroger supermarkets, too.

Kim Jung-soo developed the spicy ramen after observing the popularity of spicy fried rice in Seoul. Her product development skills helped make Samyang become one of the 100 largest companies in Korea and relegated its 1998 bankruptcy to the past.

In a society where it's rarer to find a woman CEO than in the U.S., the 59-year-old Kim looks much younger than her years and will likely lead the company a long time.