Priority is to bring back Maggi, says Nestle India

Nestle has been at the centre of India’s worst food scare in a decade after the office of the Food Safety and Standards Authority (FSSAI) in Uttar Pradesh found excess lead in a sample of Maggi noodles. The Bombay High Court today reserved the order of company against FSSAI and order is scheduled for Monday.

Nestle, in its petition, challenged the ban on Maggi variants claiming that the tests conducted by FSSAI and FDA were unreliable and that Nestle products did not contain lead beyond permissible limits. Nestle India has maintained that Maggi is safe, and is challenging the regulator in court.

A few days after taking over as the managing director of Nestle India, Suresh Narayan sat down with CNBC-TV18’s Shereen Bhan, and explained that his “first mandate was to bring Maggi noodles back in the market” and that his company would work overtime to make sure it meets customers’ expectations on quality.

Calling for an “introspection” within the company to overcome the challenge of the Maggi ban, he said: “As a effect of what has happened we will be having a process of introspection as an organisation”.

Narayanan said he was hopeful that Maggi would come back but he would not “hazard a guess” on the timing. It is my fervent hope that we will be able to find a solution and move forward and resolve the issue, ‘ he said, but did not specify how much time the company expects to put Maggi back on the shelves.

Narayanan also sought to strike a conciliatory note with the authorities when he said, “It is my endeavour and those of my colleagues that we come to with respect, with cooperation, with support from the authorities, I am not in a confrontational frame”.

“But what for me is going to be key is to grow other categories as well: dairy, coffee, confectionery”.

Asked if the company is looking at making cuts in the workforce, as fallout of the losses the company has recently posted, Narayanan said, “Let me categorically say as of now every single permanent employee of the company has his job”.