SURESH NARAYANAN, MD, Nestle India
Maggi is safe and all set for a comeback, says Suresh Narayanan, MD of Nestle India
September 7, 2015:
Even as the courts have given a clean chit to Nestle on the Maggi controversy, its appears to be a long and winding road for the global food giant to get back the noodles on the popular list of Indian households. Bloomberg TV India caught up with Suresh Narayanan, the new MD of Nestle India, and asked about the way forward and what it will take to bring Maggi back on the shelves.
After the FSSAI order on banning Maggi, how do you react to the recent court verdicts in favour of Nestle?
Number one — there is no victor and there is no vanquished. There is no sense of elation or victory in what has happened.
I am sure there is a sense of relief…
There is certainly a ray of hope that we can move forward, in the context of what we are. This is kind of vindicating some of the stands that the company has taken in fact, in the court and with the FSSAI. And I think it is also very clear to me — and Nestle’s stand is very clear on this — that the primacy for food quality and safety in this country is a regulator. So, there is no question of walking away from that ambit. Obviously, the matter is with the High Court and the court will be giving us guidance on the sampling process. Then we will take it to three accredited laboratories across the country. We have the first testing done — all going well. We start the manufacturing, do one more rounds of test, and, hopefully, I have the product in the hands of the consumers for whom really this whole journey is being undertaken.
So, the first round of testing is over out of the three rounds, which is required?
Not as yet. I think what’s happening is that the court in fact gave us six weeks. So, there were some clarifications being sought in terms of the number of samples to be taken. That clarification would be available to us relatively soon. Then the sampling process happens, the analysis process happens and I hope that by the end of September we will manage to get the analysis done as well. Then we start the manufacturing, do a round of testing which is basically five samples per variant of what people use. And if that happens, it is on to commercial.
It’s interesting to know at this point of time that you will be going ahead and testing the variants as well. So, it is going to be the entire portfolio of Maggi coming back together. Is it?
Absolutely. The pillar on which Nestle stands is quality. From farm to fork our products are 100 per cent safe for consumers.
They were, they continue to be, and they will be. As far as I am concerned, I think all that we are putting together as an organisation is to ensure the best experience to the consumer and the safety of the product are never ever compromised at any point in time.
From the consumer point of view, there has been a fear psychosis and a question mark over the quality of packaged food. When FSSAI raised an issue Nestle didn’t think they should go back and reply to what FSSAI had said at that point in time? Why just hold a press conference and recall goods?
First, as Nestle, we focus on face-to-face interactions with the regulator. It is not true to say that we were not engaging in that conversation. That conversation was going on and the issues that came up were the issue regarding the lead (content). And there, we said something very simple and clear. There are three aspects to the whole testing process.
First infrastructure — as lead and heavy metal testing requires the right kind of infrastructure. We have equipment that measures it in parts for billions against standard of parts for million. Secondly, there is a protocol of doing the test. And thirdly, it is the competence of the people who are doing the test. All that we said was the results of the laboratories that you had are from non-accredited laboratories. Those tests cannot be seen and deemed to be reliable in terms of establishing the veracity and the safety of the products. And so let us go ahead and have a dialogue on this. Now the fact is that between that time and subsequently, the matter unfortunately got considerably blown out of proportion.
There was confusion in the minds of consumers and therefore we chose the withdrawal process and soon we also had the ban put on us.
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