Nongshim’s Chapaghetti most hashtagged local instant noodles on Instagram

Nongshim’s Chapaghetti stands out among all local instant noodle brands as one of the most popular, with the greatest number of Instagram posts using its name as a hashtag, the food company said Tuesday.

According to Nongshim, the hashtag bearing the name of the popular black bean instant noodles had been attached to about 219,000 posts written in Korean as of Monday.

The runner-up was Buldak Spicy Chicken noodles from Samyang Foods, which had 195,000 posts featuring its name as a hashtag. Nongshim’s Shin Ramyun came third with 146,000 posts, and Ottogi’s Jin Ramen followed with 69,000 posts. All the searches were done in Korean.

Chapaghetti came into the international limelight in early 2020, when it was featured in the Oscar-winning film “Parasite.” A character mixes it with Nongshim’s soup-based Noguri ramen to create “Chapaguri” (called “ram-don” in the English subtitles, referring to ramen and udon).

With the home-cooking trend setting in amid the coronavirus outbreak, last year Chapaghetti achieved its highest sales since its release in 1984.

According to Nongshim, 219 billion won ($196 million) worth of Chapaghetti was sold in 2020, up 19 percent from the previous year.

The number of Instagram posts with the Chapaghetti hashtag surged to 50,000 in 2020 alone, accounting for one-fourth of Chapaghetti-hashtagged posts of all time.

By Jo He-rim (herim@heraldcorp.com)