Shares of South Korean food companies are riding high in Seoul trading on the expectation for improved earnings as they are announcing to mark up their products one after another.

According to sources from finance and food industries on Friday, shares of Nongshim Co., South Korea’s largest manufacturer of instant noodles and snacks, are on an upward spiral after it raised prices of its instant noodles by 5.5 percent in average.

Nongshim’s share price has jumped by around 20 percent during the last three months after it hit the one-year low of 282,000 won ($245.64) on October 17 last year. Its shares in Seoul trading on last Thursday jumped 6 percent from the previous training session on an inflow of institutional and offshore investors. Market experts predict the company to record up to 140 billion won in operating profit this year, jumping from anticipated 92 billion won operating profit last year. It is yet to release its earnings for the fourth quarter ended December 2016.

On Friday, Nongshim shares ended down 1.45 percent, or 5,000 won, at 340,500 from a previous session, taking a breath after a three-day winning streak.

Lee Kyung-joo, an analyst at Korea Investment & Securities Co. said the positive effects from the markup will start being translated in the earnings from the second half this year and others in the local food industry are expected to also raise prices of their products in three to four months of time. The shares of Ottogi Corp and Samyang Foods Co., the second and the third largest food makers of the country, too, have been heading upwards recently.

Shares of Samyang Foods inched up 10.15 percent from the previous trading session to finish at 43,400 on February 1 upon an expectation of better earnings in line with product price increase on top of supply expansion news. The food products maker in the beginning of this year announced that it plans to add two additional production lines.

Ottogi and Samyang Foods’s low price-earnings ratio (PER) compared to average PERs of other players in local food and beverages market are also driving up their share prices, market experts said. PERs of the two food products manufacturers are estimated to stand at around 13 based on last year’s sales projection while those of others average at between 15 and 16.

Dongwon F&B Co., the country’s major canned tuna maker, is also seeing its share price moving upwards since it announced on January 12 that it will raise prices of its canned tuna products by 5.1 percent in average after four and a half years of keeping the prices steady. Shares of Dongwon F&B ended Friday at 214,500 won, up by more than 10 percent since its markup announcement made about a month ago.

By Hong Jang-won

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