Biggest recall order after hazard label on Maggi

Nestle’s global CEO
Paul Bulcke in Delhi. (Reuters)

TT, Delhi, June 5: Maggi - which rose every day for the past 33 years to the rescue of countless parents wrestling with fussy children, students living alone and professionals too busy to cook - has been declared "hazardous for human consumption".

Maggi noodles will not be made, processed, distributed, sold or imported in the country till further orders.

The national food safety regulator today ordered Nestle India to withdraw and stop sales of Maggi noodles, citing the presence of lead and other safety violations and rejecting the company's assertion that its product was safe for consumption.

"Withdraw and recall all the nine approved variants of Maggi instant noodles from the market, having been found unsafe and hazardous for human consumption, and stop further production, processing, import, distribution and sale of the said product with immediate effect," the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) directed the company.

The company has been given 15 days to "show cause" why the approvals it had received for nine variants of its noodles should not be withdrawn.

The Maggi recall is easily the biggest the country has ever seen, with independent estimates putting it at 20 million packs. Market analysts said the cost of the recall and related expenditure would be around Rs 1,000 crore.

Nestle India, which announced on Thursday night its decision to take the product off the shelves, has in official discussions with the FSSAI challenged the validity of test results from the Central Food Laboratory (CFL), Calcutta, that revealed the presence of lead in samples of its noodles.

Ending an initial phase of muted response, Nestle today scrambled to contain the contagion engulfing a product enjoying 65 per cent of the market share, insisting that Maggi noodles were safe and reasserting that the claim had been validated by test results from independent private labs in the country.

"The noodles are safe.... We will do what it takes to have Maggi noodles back on shelves as soon as possible," Paul Bulcke, Nestle's global chief executive who flew down to New Delhi to fire-fight, told a packed news conference here, a day after senior company representatives met FSSAI officials.

But Bulcke said the company would not take a confrontational line and challenge the government lab test results in courts. Instead, it would prefer to confer with the regulators and resolve the issue through discussion.

"We are not contesting their tests. But we believe there could be different outcomes based on the way the tests are carried out," Bulcke said.

"We are ready to do whatever it takes to clarify the situation with the regulators. We will engage with all the stakeholders," Bulcke added.

The FSSAI order, issued by chief executive Y.S. Malik, said: "The company is further directed to submit a compliance report in this behalf within a period of three days and furnish progress reports on the recall process on a daily basis thereafter till the process is completed."

The controversy over the two-minute brand of noodles, introduced by Nestle in India 33 years ago, erupted last month after the CFL reported in April this year that it had detected unacceptable levels of lead in samples of the noodles sent by Uttar Pradesh food regulators last year.

The FSSAI said the CFL had detected 17 parts per million (ppm) of lead - significantly higher than the permissible limit of 2.5ppm - in the sample it tested.

Delhi authorities have found unacceptable levels of lead in 10 of 13 samples, while Gujarat found unacceptable lead levels in 15 of 29 samples. Tamil Nadu has informed the FSSAI that it has also detected lead beyond permissible limits in the noodles of other manufacturers.

The regulator has also charged Nestle with "misleading" labels on the issue of monosodium glutamate, as its packages have the words: "NO added MSG".

Another charge has been added with the FSSAI saying the company released its "Maggi Oats Masala noodles with Tastemaker" without risk assessment and product approval.

The FSSAI has accepted Nestle's claim that glutamate occurs naturally in certain ingredients such as vegetable proteins but has cited a US Food and Drug Administration directive that foods with ingredients that naturally contain glutamate cannot claim "No added MSG" on their packets.

Nestle has now decided to drop the controversial tagline from its packs.

The government said it was "disturbing" that Nestle had already released its oats masala noodles in the market "without completing the process of risk assessment", refusing to accept the company's claim that the rules relating to this issue were at the time under a court stay.

The Nestle chief said the Indian subsidiary had decided to take the product off the shelves because of the confusion created by the conflicting results from tests carried out by government-owned food testing labs and those Nestle ran at privately owned labs on 1,000 product batches produced at its five different plants across the country -representing 125 million packs of noodles.

"The trust of our consumers and the safety and quality of our products is our foremost priority everywhere in the world. Unfortunately, recent developments and growing concerns about the product have led to confusion for the consumer to such an extent that we have decided to take the product temporarily off the shelves, in spite the product being safe," Bulcke added.

Nestle stonewalled queries on how many packs would be withdrawn and the manner in which the operation would be carried out.

Bulcke and his advisers did not want to be drawn into discussions about the likely costs, the possible duration for which Maggi noodles would remain off the shelves and the impact the crisis may have on its performance this fiscal.

"We will be back in the market very shortly," said the Nestle boss, who refused to entertain questions about conspiracy theories and "motivated enquiries" by food inspectors across some states.

He said Nestle India was constantly testing its products and had 400 people working in laboratories to test its food samples. Globally, it has 8,000 people involved in testing and quality control.

The company follows the same quality and safety standards in India as it does elsewhere in the world, Bulcke said.

With Maggi brand ambassadors, including Amitabh Bachchan and Madhuri Dixit, coming under fire, Nestle India senior vice-president, corporate affairs, Sanjay Khajuria said the company would be "supportive" of them in the event of any court case.

Maggi noodles account for around 30 per cent of Nestle India's revenues of nearly Rs 10,000 crore and the possible loss of six months of sales would dent its performance this financial year.

"Yes, the Nestle India shares are down but our main concern at this stage is consumer trust. That's our first priority," Bulcke said.

Maggi sales in the country contribute less than 1 per cent to Nestle's global revenues of almost $98.6 billion (around Rs 6.29 lakh crore) but the damage to the brand could be greater as regulators in the UK and Ireland independently ordered tests on Maggi noodles and Singapore and Nepal ordered local importers to temporarily suspend the sale of Maggi noodles imported from India.