日清食品會推出新杯麵產品

Recently the Mainichi News on-line reported the following:
　日清食品は１２日、水を入れて電子レンジで加熱する即席カップライスの新商品「日清焼そばＵ・Ｆ・Ｏ・そばめし」を来年１月３日から近畿２府４県で先行発売すると発表した。今年７月に全国発売し、売れ行きが好調な「日清カップヌードルごはん」と「同シーフード」に続くシリーズ第３弾。新ブランド商品の投入でさらなる市場拡大を目指す。
　人気カップ焼きそば「Ｕ・Ｆ・Ｏ・」のめんを細かく刻み、熱風で乾燥させた米と混ぜ合わせた。焼きそばの風味を出すため、ソースにもフライめんの香ばしさを加えた。焼きそばとご飯を炒めた「そばめし」は神戸市長田区発祥とされ、味になじんでいる消費者が多いことから、近畿での先行発売を決めた。希望小売価格は１個２５０円（税別）。来春をめどに全国に発売を広げ、年間売り上げ目標は２０億円。
　１０年８月に近畿で先行発売したカップヌードルごはんは、１１年７月までの１年間の売り上げが当初目標の５倍強に達した。１１年７月からの全国発売で年間売り上げ５０億円を目指す。日清は今後も新商品を開発し、カップライスシリーズで年間１００億円の売り上げ目標を掲げる。
(試譯文)
On the 12th the Nissin Food Products announced that it would carry out pilot sales of their new product "Nissin fried-noodle U-F-O sobameshi", a cup noodle which would be ready to eat if water was added and heated by a microwave oven, starting from January 3 next year in 2 Kinki Fu and 4 prefectures. This was the 3rd phase, following a series of sales carried out nationwide in July this year: the popular "Nissin cup noodle rice" and "the seafood".
This injection of a new brand-name product aimed at the further expansion of market. The popular cup noodle "U-F-O-" was made with finely minced noodle dried by hot wind, and then mixed with the dried rice. In order to give out the flavor of fried noodles, the fragrance of flied noodle was added to the sauce also. "Sobameshi" was the stir-fried noodle together with the boiled rice; it was considered having an origin in the Nagata district of Kobe city. Since there were many consumers who had got used to it, Kinki was opted for the pilot sales. A manufacturer's suggested price was 250 yen (excluding tax) per piece. There would be extensive sales all over the country next spring, the targeted annual sales was 2 billion yen.
As for the boiled rice cup noodle which had its pilot sales carried out in Kinki in August 2010, the sales in the year ending July 2011 amounted to over 5 times of the original target. Regarding the nationwide sales starting from July 2011, the aim was an annual sales of 5 billion yen . Nissin continued to develop new products and held up a 10 billion yen sales target per year in cup rice series.

Without any doubt, Japan is number one in the invention and production of cup noodles.