Have convenience noodles taken an inconvenient fall?

Choices aplenty: A customer selecting instant noodles at a supermarket in Yinchuan in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China. — Reuters

THERE is no need to cry over the falling sales of instant noodles, for decades of robust economic growth have made Chinese consumers wise enough to shift to healthy diets and lifestyles.

A recent Bain & Company and Kantar Worldpanel report shows that annual sales of instant noodles in China dropped by 12.5% in 2015. Yet it is premature to conclude that this is clear evidence of upgraded consumption in China, as the downward pressure on economic growth and skyrocketing housing prices in big cities are eating into Chinese people’s incomes.