Faulty wheat supply pushes noodle price to skies
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Noodle fans in their millions must be cursing the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The squiggly meal is getting pricey as the price of wheat is going through the roof.
Alongside, noodles manufactures heap more costs from energy and transport on consumers.
The price squeeze comes from combined effects of droughts and floods in the past year, causing 30 percent rise for wheat in China, according to The Guardian.
A similar push caused spike in price of noodle in South Korea and Japan.
China is the world's largest consumer of noodles—just imagine what pricey noodle means for them!
China is facing a food inflation for almost two years even as cities like Shanghai open after lockdowns.
The 2021 flood in China's wheat belt cut short basic ingredient of noodles, which only worsened following supply chain issues from Ukraine war, according to the report.
Prices of refined flour in China rose to record high, up more than 10 per cent since the start of the year.
Both the pandemic and the snarl-ups in global supply chain was accentuating on wheat price.
The situation got further worsened with the Ukraine war, doubling the price from November from $ 260 per tonne to $ 475 in mid-May this year, according to the report.
Noodles are a staple for millions of people around the world, but especially in Asia. According to the World Instant Noodles Association, there are 290m servings of instant noodles eaten every day, which means 106.4bn servings a year, The Guardian reported.
Consuming at the rate of 44bn servings in 2021, China is the top eater of noodles followed by Indonesia with 13bn serves.
Noodle fans in the Korea must be feeling the pinch as the price of the country's popular dish kalguksu, or hot soup with flour noodles, rose 8.7% in March.
Other popular noodle dishes to go dearer include naengmyeon and jajangmyeon.
In Jakarta potential rise noodle price made its economics minister to raise it at the world summit in Davos last month.
Shortages of buckwheat are pushing up the price of Japan's famous soba noodles.