Not a boil of 2 minutes, Maggi in deep waters!

By K Singhania & Co | June 12, 2015

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Not a boil of 2 minutes, Maggi in deep waters!

More than 10 states of India have imposed a ban on the sales of the Maggi brand of instant noodles, owned by Swiss multinational Nestle, after scare involving reports of higher than permissible levels of lead and monosodium glutamate. A nationwide recall of Maggi packets has been issued – the first of its kind – by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, or FSSAI.

Nestle itself beat the regulator to the draw, recalling packets of Maggi a few hours before the government notice on Friday – although the company insisted that Maggi was, in fact, perfectly safe to eat. Meanwhile, the consumer affairs department has said it will seek damages in consumer court from Nestle on behalf of Indian consumers, and has asked the government’s lawyers to come up with “a watertight case”. It must be stressed that, although some government laboratories found excess levels of lead and MSG, other labs did not. So the exact safety of Maggi remains disputed. But whatever the resolution, somebody will come out of this not looking too good. If Maggi is problematic, then one of the most iconic of brands, distinctively Indian in spite of being owned by a multinational, will have been severely dented. And if Maggi is cleared of the charges, then the food safety administration will justifiably be accused of causing a major scare before all the facts are in.

The Lucknow Food Safety and Drug Administration has initiated inquiry and written to the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) in New Delhi seeking to cancel the licence for Maggi. The state regulator has also asked FSSAI to order sampling of the product from across the country to check quality.

FSDA Assistant Commissioner Vijay Bahadur Yadav had stated that they have tested Maggi samples at Kolkata’s referral laboratory and the results showed that there were added monosodium glutamate and excess of lead. He also stated that they have ordered further sampling.

However, Nestle, which manufactures Maggi, maintains that it does not add monosodium glutamate to the product, whereas presence of excess lead is “surprising” for the company.

The FSSAI had issued an order last week banning all variants of Nestle India’s Maggi noodles, terming them as “unsafe and hazardous” for human consumption.

Embroiled in the Maggi controversy, Nestle India finally approached the Bombay High Court to seek a judicial review of the food safety regulator FSSAI’s order over quality of its instant noodles. In the filing to BSE it was said that as part of the efforts to resolve the Maggi noodles issue, Nestle India has approached the Bombay High Court raising issues of interpretation of the Food Safety and Standards Act 2011 while seeking a judicial review of the order dated June 6, 2015, passed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Maharashtra and the order dated June 5 passed by FSSAI.

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