Super spicy “Fire Noodles” have empowered housewives and transformed them into millionaires. Kim Jung-soo, the CEO of Samyang Foods, is considered a real-life Korean drama idol, with a net worth of $1.1 billion.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with the global success of Samyang’s Fire Noodles, the company’s stock rose by 215% in 2024, allowing the 59-year-old Kim Jung-soo to amass a fortune of $1.1 billion.
Women are rarely seen as leaders in large Korean companies. Kim Jung-soo, who married into the Samyang family in her youth and took care of household chores while raising a son and a daughter, stepped up and took charge of the group after Samyang declared bankruptcy at the end of the 1990s. She ventured into the business world and, after more than a decade of hard work, saved the entire conglomerate with the super spicy “Fire Noodles.”
Park Choo-geun, the head of the Seoul-based corporate research firm Leaders Index, told Bloomberg that Kim Jung-soo had no prior management experience but was entrusted by her in-laws at Samyang to lead the group instead of considering other male family members, which was highly uncommon.
It is reported that Kim Jung-soo, who was taking care of her two young sons at home at the time, stepped in at a critical moment and, under her father-in-law’s guidance, took on the role of group sales director.
Despite her lack of business experience, she had graduated from the prestigious Ewha Womans University in South Korea. Her primary task upon taking office was to cut costs, often travelling abroad to find cheaper sources of supply.
Once Samyang’s finances stabilized, she established a new product committee in 2006, aiming to develop new products and expand into overseas markets.
It wasn’t until 2011 when Kim Jung-soo witnessed diners sweating profusely but still unable to resist a super spicy Korean chicken dish at a restaurant, showing the potential of the spicy food market and sparking the idea of creating Fire Noodles.
In an interview with a local newspaper in February this year, Kim Jung-soo recalled spending a year creating a prototype of the Fire Noodles using 1,200 chickens and 2 tons of sauce, which initially faced skepticism due to being too spicy.
However, after refining the recipe, the Buldak spicy chicken noodle series became immensely popular globally, especially in markets like the United States, with availability in major retailers like Costco and Walmart.
A spokesperson for Samyang Foods, in a written response to Bloomberg, stated that the United States has become the company’s largest overseas market, accounting for approximately 20% of total sales.
Samyang Foods saw a 44.2% increase in revenue in the first nine months of this year, reaching 1.2 trillion Korean won, with 75% of the revenue coming from noodle exports.