The Acecook Vietnam JSC, a subsidiary of Japanese noodle-maker Acecook, recently kicked off construction of a $200 million factory in the Mekong Delta province of Vinh Long.

The 11-ha plant will have 17 production lines and is set to employ 3,000 people, with products including noodles, rice noodles, vermicelli, and glass noodles. In the first phase, with nine production lines in operation, annual output is set to reach 1.2 billion packs.

Acecook’s 12th in Vietnam, the factory will be partly powered by solar energy and biomass fuel.

Mr. Kaneda Hiroki, General Director of Acecook Vietnam, said that after 30 years in the country, Acecook is extremely pleased that its products are always enthusiastically received by customers. Thanks to this level of support, Acecook Vietnam has continually expanded its factories and its business activities.

This new factory was built to meet the company’s growing business and better serve consumer needs. “We expect that the factory will have a positive impact on the environment and society, in accordance with the company’s core values of ‘3 Happiness’: bringing happiness to customers, employees and families, and society as a whole,” Mr. Hiroki added.

Acecook arrived in Vietnam in 1993 and is one of the country’s leading noodle businesses. Prior to this latest addition, it operated eleven factories around Vietnam, employing 6,000 people and supplying 3.4 billion packs a year. Average productivity is 600 packs a minute on each production line, and it posted revenue of nearly $600 million in 2022.

Vietnam was among the top three markets in the world for instant noodles for the three years ending 2022, according to the World Instant Noodles Association (WINA). Some 8.48 billion packs were consumed in 2022, far higher than any other country except for China, which including Hong Kong (China) consumed 45.07 billion packs, and Indonesia, with 14.26 billion packs. On average, each Vietnamese person consumes 85 packs a year, ranking it first in the world.