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NESTLE

Indian Maggi ban costs Nestlé $50 million

Nestlé says that India's decision to ban the Swiss food giant's hugely popular Maggi instant noodles over safety concerns had led to 3.2 billion rupees ($50.5 million) worth of goods being withdrawn.

Indian Maggi ban costs Nestlé $50 million
Photo: Money Sharma/AFP

The Vevey-based company said on Monday that its Indian unit had estimated the value of Maggi noodle stocks withdrawn from the shelves at 2.1 billion rupees.
   
Another 1.1 billion rupees worth of Maggi stocks were in factories and with distributors, the company said.
   
India's food safety regulator had banned the product over tests which it said showed the noodles contained excessive levels of lead.
   
The total cost of the shock ban would be given later, Nestlé said.
   
The world's biggest food company is challenging the June 5th order from the government's food safety regulator.
   
The company had already announced it was pulling the product from sale when the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) imposed a ban following similar moves by some state governments.
   
Nestlé, which says the noodles are safe to eat, said it would keep the product off store shelves despite the court action it has launched challenging the ban.
   
The safety scare is a huge blow to the company, which has been selling its
Maggi products for over three decades in India, and has 80 percent of the
country's instant noodle market.
   
Maggi noodles grew increasingly popular as more and more Indians moved away from their homes to study or seek work.
   
It emerged as one of India's five most trusted brands in a consumer survey conducted last year.
   
Several celebrities have endorsed Maggi over the years, including Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan.

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NESTLE

‘Unlimited resources’: Switzerland’s Nestle goes vegan

Swiss food giant Nestle, which has made billions with dairy products, said Monday it will host start-ups that want to develop vegetarian alternatives.

'Unlimited resources': Switzerland's Nestle goes vegan
Photo: SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP

Nestle could thus find itself at the forefront of a sector that has strong growth potential, an analyst commented.

It plans to open its research and development (R&D) centre in Konolfingen, Switzerland to “start-ups, students and scientists” a statement said.

In addition to testing sustainable dairy products, the group plans to encourage work on plant-based dairy alternatives, it added.

Chief executive Mark Schneider was quoted as saying that “innovation in milk products and plant-based dairy alternatives is core to Nestle's portfolio strategy.”

The group unveiled a vegetable-based milk that had already been developed with the process, and technical director Stefan Palzer told AFP it planned to focus on 100-200 such projects a year.

Jon Cox, an analyst at Kepler Cheuvreux, noted that while Nestle had missed some consumer trends in the past, it has now “taken something of a lead in the plant-based alternative market for food”.

And “given its pretty much unlimited resources, Nestle is going to come out one of the winners in the space,” Cox forecast in an e-mail.

Nestle said that “internal, external and mixed teams” would work at the R&D centre over six-month periods.

Nestle would provide “expertise and key equipment such as small to medium-scale production equipment to facilitate the rapid upscaling of products for a test launch in a retail environment,” it added.

The Swiss food giant has long been known for its dairy products, but faced a boycott in the 1970s for allegedly discouraging mothers in developing countries from breastfeeding even though it was cheaper and more nutritious than powdered formula.

On Monday, the group's statement also underscored that the research initiative was part of its commitment to help fight global warming.

“As a company, we have set ambitious climate goals. This is part of our promise to develop products that are good for you and good for the planet,” it said.

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