By Shalini Pandey
More than two years after a ban on popular noodles brand Maggi left a bitter taste in Nestle’s mouth, the company has found itself in yet another soup as its highest-selling product has again failed to pass food safety regulations. The district administration of Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, has slapped a fine on Nestle India, a unit of packaged food giant Nestle SA and its distributors after its popular noodles brand Maggi allegedly failed to pass the lab test, which has found ash content above the permissible limits of human consumption.
Reasons for the fine
The administration has imposed a fine of INR 45 lakh on Nestle, INR 15 lakh on its three distributors and INR 11 lakh on its two sellers, as damages and for violation of food safety norms. According to the district authorities, it had collected the samples in November 2016 and sent them for a lab test. “The lab test found ash content above the permissible limits of human consumption”, said Ranjan Singh, a legal officer at the Shahjahanpur district court in Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday. The sample of ‘Maggi Masala’ noodles from the shop of one Rinku Gupta had 2.54% of ash content, excluding salt in the tastemaker. Ash percentage of 2.60% was found in the tastemaker of ‘Maggi Atta’ noodles and ‘Maggi Pazzta’ samples were found to have ash percentage of 1.2. Four samples of Maggi Masala, two samples of Maggi Pazzta and a sample of Maggi Atta noodles failed the lab test. “Ash content in Maggi samples exceeded the prescribed limit of 1%. Maggi is consumed mostly by children and playing with the health of people by providing sub-standard products is something that cannot be pardoned under any circumstances,” said Assistant District Magistrate (ADM) JK Sharma while levying the fines.
Nestle’s response
Declining the lab findings, Nestle India said it has not received the order yet and would file an appeal urgently once it receives the order. “While we have not received the orders passed by the adjudication officer, we have been informed that the samples are of the year 2015 and the issue pertains to ‘ash content’ in noodles,” said a Nestle India spokesperson. He further added, “This appears to be a case of application of incorrect standards.”
India is fifth when it comes to consumption of instant noodles around the world, with over 4,270 million packets sold in 2016. According to the Mordor Intelligence report, the instant noodles industry in India has emerged as the most attractive, witnessing 7.6% annual growth between 2010 and 2017, despite the ban on Maggi.
Déjà vu: Nestle’s 2015 nightmare
This turn of events is somewhat reminiscent of Nestle India’s 2015 nightmare; when Maggi noodles tested positive for high levels of lead and higher-than-permitted levels of monosodium glutamate, or MSG. Nestle India had said they do not add MSG to Maggi noodles sold in India. “However, we use hydrolysed groundnut protein, onion powder and wheat flour to make Maggi noodles sold in India, which all contain glutamate. We believe that the authorities’ tests may have detected glutamate, which occurs naturally in many foods,” it added.
Soon, labs across the country were reporting the product for its high lead and MSG contents, and state after state went on to ban it. On June 5, following an order from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), Nestle withdrew all variants of Maggi noodles from the market, destroying over 35,000 tonnes of the product. A long-time national favourite, Maggi noodles’ share went from 80% to nothing in India’s INR 3,400 crore ($527 million) instant noodles market following the debacle. With Maggi accounting for almost 25% of Nestle India’s annual sales back then, this was a huge blow to the Swiss company. During the period when Maggi was banned, ITC Ltd’s Yippee noodles and Wai Wai noodles from Nepal’s CG Foods gained market share, filling a gap in a Rs3,182-crore noodles market.
Ushering in a new era of responsibility
The 2015 episode pushed Nestlé India and other makers of packaged noodles to seek standards specific for instant noodles in India, to revise the limit of ash permissible in food products. Following this, the FSSAI had proposed to double the limit of ash content in packaged foods to two percent – from the earlier one percent – in July 2016. “The standards have since been introduced and the product complies with these standards,” Nestle said in its latest statement.
However, sources say, the recent case of violation of the standards may be due to confusion over what is the right permissible limit for ash, among the food and drug administration officials. According to an executive from a packaged food maker, who is yet to view the latest lab reports, the new reports may be based on old standards, i.e., one percent of ash in food products. An official of the FSSAI has said they are closely monitoring the developments and will only be commenting when they get a copy of the test reports.
Featured Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
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