Anuga 2025: Samyang expands in Europe with Korean flavors and culture
08 Oct 2025 | Samyang
At Anuga 2025, the marketing lead at Samyang Europe, Xuan Khuat Duy, said the company’s success lies in its blend of Korean authenticity, local culture, and spicy flavors. Duy told us that the company operates in over 40 European markets and optimizes its operations to better comply with EU regulations.
Hello and welcome.
I'm Marta Nougat 2025 speaking to Sam Young.
Hello, can you tell us a bit about yourself and what you're presenting this year?
Sure, so, I'm Juan Quadri.
I'm the head of marketing for Sam Young Europe, and we are here in Hanoga with the Team, both marketing and sales and the the idea of course is to promote a product and to share all the existing and new products that we want to put on the market and of course we want to use to keep growing the K wave and Bull leading this wave.
Awesome.
So can you tell us specifically what are your products that we are seeing all over the booth today?
Sure, so our core range, and it all started with this range, which is instant stir fried noodles, bull duck.
So those are the top selling flavors.
Carbonara is the number one in Europe, and this is the original.
Hot chicken bulldog means hot chicken, by the way, flavor.
And then we have also new products on the Bulldog brand.
We are taking the bulldog vibe on the hot sauce segment with this new product, which is hot sauce, very versatile.
You can use it for cooking, for marinating, for dripping, for drizzling.
And you find again all the flavor that people loved in the Bullang noodles, and another innovation that we are having is this new ranch which is Tango, a new brand, and the idea is to definitely upgrade your usual basic instant noodle moments.
With much sophisticated flavor, different product experience with different types of pasta, fettuccine, linguine, spaghetti that are pairing with very nice flavors, and this one is a really nice one.
It's creamy mushrooms, but we also have creamy bulgogi.
We have garlic oil, and we have tomato chunk.
So this is just being launched right now.
And of course it would be a different type of offer than Bulldog, but very complimentary.
So you are launching Tango Atanga right now.
This is your first.
It's been launched in the ethnic markets and from the beginning of next year it's going to hit the shelf in the supermarkets.
So what are your biggest markets in Europe that you're targeting, and are you planning to expand with this?
Yes, of course, as you know, there is a big traction around the Bulldo brand, especially that's why the entity in Europe has been created 1 year ago.
It's still recent, so the market is expanding quickly.
The capability is also in distribution, but we are always on the lookout for new partners.
The core markets at this point are the Netherlands, Germany, UK.
And then also France and Poland.
These are the top 5 markets, but all in all we are distributing over 40 markets in Europe and of course all markets are growing and.
Anuga is a very good event for us because it's a way to create connections with potential new partners that can help in accelerating the growth and the coverage with the distribution of our products.
And what's behind Bulldo's huge success in Europe?
How do you guys stand out from other similar brands?
I think lots of people are talking about Bulldog as a kind of a viral brand and about the role of the social.
Networks, of course that's true, especially for one part of our young consumers, I would say, but I think beyond this Bulldock is also a very unique product, and I think it would not be so long term and sustainable if it was not the case.
I think it's at the crossroads of different things.
Of course there is a K wave and Bullak stands for the Korean authenticity, being like a From a company, Samyong, which exists from the 70s and which was the first company to bring the ramen to Korea, but Bullak is also the bridge between let's say the local culture and the Korean culture.
So I think it's it's not very random if carbonara is definitely the first flavor for the European market.
So it's really bridging those two words and of course On top of that, we have this let's territory of the spiciness, spiciness, which is also very trendy, I think.
Bulldog has become the standard when we talk about spiciness on the instant noodle market, it's famous for this.
It became famous also through the spicy challenge and the social network, so it's intrinsically part of the DNA of this brand, and it's not only just spiciness.
There is also this idea that there is depth.
In the spicy flavor and that's why the sauce is an interesting extension with umami smoky flavor, very hard to describe but very recognizable.
So I think in this sense bulldog is very different from the rest of the market.
And speaking of the European market, have you faced any issues, especially knowing what EU regulations are like?
What has it been like for Sam?
EU regulation is very specific when it comes to the question of the quality insurance.
And in the context of Bulldo has been spread like almost pulled by the demands, so having the product coming from Korea, so not always with the perfect conditions in terms of compliance, but now with the creation of an entity and the idea is really to professionalize and especially if you want to go into main channels.
Now we are equipped with the capabilities to indeed have this quality insurance expertise.
We are working with global institutes for labeling for ingredients compliance.
So now, obviously everything is under control, and I think it would be also something that would help in accelerating the growth of the distribution of the products.
And are there any other trends or anything else that you would like to highlight in terms of Samang's presentation at this year?
I think of course there are lots of trends, but the question is which trend will stay.
I think Bulldog demonstrates that it's not following a trend, it's creating a trend.
I think Bulldog was the product that created kind of a segment.
And the instant noodle, like a structural segment which is a spicy instant noodle.
But once again we are at the beginning of the journey.
Just to let you know, in terms of mainstream, so when we talk about supermarkets, our distribution for bulldog in Europe is still below 20%, right?
So it's just a matter of capabilities having the right.
But the demand is here, so I think the coming months, the coming years are very promising because Bullack is very famous, but not everywhere yet, and now we need to match our awareness on the digital network with our awareness and availability in the physical stores to be able to serve our consumers.
Thanks for your time.
