Retailers in State cautious about selling Maggi again

They are unsure whether customers will buy controversial product

The sale of Maggi Noodles may have resumed online, but several offline stores say they will wait for some time before deciding on having the popular snack back on their shelves.

Most retailers Deccan Herald spoke to said they would wait for the product to enter the supermarket chain and then take a call on whether or not to place orders for it. Still, a few retailers are already selling the snack. For instance, Morestore in Shankarnagar has started selling the item. A representative of Morestore said the sales had been remarkable. He said they managed to sell a good stock of the product the day it was back on their shelves.

But other retailers said they were awaiting the go-ahead from their head offices on selling the product again. “We do not yet have orders from our main office on buying the product. We have no stock of it,” said a representative of Food Bazaar, part of Big Bazaar supermarket chain.

A shopkeeper in Rajajinagar said on the condition of anonymity, “I will wait for Maggi to come to the market and then see if I want to purchase it. We don’t know if people are willing to buy a product after so much controversy about it. We will just wait and watch.”
What has been advertised as the ‘longest two-minute wait’ for Maggi given the controversy around it has given its competitors a cakewalk. With customers accustomed to buying other brands of noodles, retailers say they are not very keen on buying Maggi as it offered a lower profit margin compared to others.

“This brand has been dominating the market for a very long time but most retailers are not happy with the returns they get. We have even talked to the company’s representatives in this regard,” said a manager at Nilgiris, another supermarket chain.
Maggi was banned from many states earlier this year after some findings suggested that it had high levels of lead and Mono Sodium Glutamate (MSG). Nestle India Ltd, which manufactures the snack, has taken to the online platform to reassure customers that the product is safe.

The company stressed that MSG has not been added to the product.

“We have removed the specific mention of ‘No added MSG’ from the label to remove the possibility of confusion for consumers. We confirm that we do not add MSG (E621) to Maggi Noodles in India as was stated on the label earlier. But some ingredients like groundnut protein, onion powder and wheat flour contain glutamate naturally,” the statement said.