John Camilo B Dichoso 22/08/2022

ECEE-B23
“Lucky Me!”

As humans, food is one of the essential things in our lives. It is one thing that fully
completes the trifecta of survival. As more and more time passed each nation and
country created its own cultures surrounding food (Boutad, Becut, et al., 2016). Each of
these cultural staples has been appreciated by the people of each country. In
multicultural countries like the Philippines, have different types of food from diverse
types of cultures can be seen being sold from the smallest of night market stalls to the
largest of companies, we can see how one can truly benefit from one’s own food culture
and practices (Dam, Reddy, 2020). One of the companies that have affected Filipinos
includes the Jollibee Foods Corporation and their worldwide fast-food chain “Jollibee ''
and Emperador Inc. with their own famous Emperador Brandy and other types of strong
to light alcohol. One of the companies included in this is Monde Nissin, a company that
often gets overshadowed by these large companies and while known for creating the
ever-famous “Lucky Me” noodles has only recently joined the global stage for Filipino
food branded companies.

Monde Nissin started out being known as the “Monde Denmark Nissin Biscuit”, in
the year after they were established they started to manufacture the “Nissin Wafers”
and “Nissin Butter Coconut Biscuits” (Birch, 2021). In later years, namely 1989 they
opened their now incredibly famous instant noodle brand “Lucky Me!” and when it
created the first dry stir-fried packet noodles in the Philippines it was an instant hit to the
masses with the Kantar Worldpanel stating that it is one of the biggest consumer
products in the Philippines (Monde Nissin, n.d.). As they are also selling biscuits and
wafers, they have also bought the Filipino Company M. Y. San Corporation known for
biscuits like SkyFlakes and the M.Y. San Grahams (Monde M.Y. San Corporation, n.d.).

As of more recent years Monde Nissin has been buying and investing in different
foreign companies. In 2004 they established a new branch of their company in
Chonburi, Thailand and offered Voiz Cracker, Voiz Waffle and Monde Cake among
many other new products (Monde Nissin Thailand, n.d.). In 2014 they bought the
Australian companies “Black Swan”, a brand that sells chilled dips and Greek yogurt,
along with this the company “Nudie” one of the biggest coconut water manufacturer in
Australia. In the following year, they also bought “Quorn Foods”, a meat alternative
brand, from the same country for 550 million pounds (Dumlao-Abadilla, 2018). Now they
sell their products to over 40 different countries including countries in Asia, Africa,
Europe, North America, with countries such as the United Kingdom and Thailand
among many others (Camay, n.d.)

The first attribute that makes Monde Nissin a global company is how they
develop and help create more opportunities with solving sustainability issues and
addressing problems on the environmental side due to them being a company designed
around food. They also plan to give better livelihoods to the growing population
especially here in the Philippines. (Monde Nissin, n.d.) Another reason they are a global
company is that, as of 2021, they have one of the largest Initial Public Offerings (IPO) in
Southeast Asia and is also being backed by 11 investors making them one of the
biggest stock market shareholders in the southeast Asia region (Birch, 2021) and while
due to some recent incident the company has taken a big loss, they still have a market
value of ₽288.94 Billion (Barron’s, n.d.)

In conclusion, while overshadowed by its bigger competitors here in the

Philippines Monde Nissin has put a lot on its plate. It is an outstanding company that
has been slowly rising over the years. Being able to cultivate not only their own
company by itself but giving back to the people who made them successful in the first
place. Giving more precedence to how much larger it is growing as a company and one
of the biggest food distributors in the Philippines.