"A cautionary tale of mangled crisis management on an epic scale."
April 26, 2016 11:35 AM Subscribe
And lets not forget Nestle's history in developing countries.
posted by infini at 11:52 AM on April 26, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by infini at 11:52 AM on April 26, 2016 [5 favorites]
And it’s a case study in irony about a company that, after a humiliating and existential scandal over infant formula, tried to reinvent itself as a paragon of corporate do-gooding and transparency—only to discover that no matter what positive, world-bettering things it did, it couldn’t quite escape its tainted past.
*weeps bitter tears like a crocodile*
ok, will step back out of thread now, but fwiw, I was once responsible for managing Maggi's snail mail fulfillment center for a cookbook made by my employer, their ad agency, in the previous century, back in New Delhi. Best I stop here.
posted by infini at 12:03 PM on April 26, 2016 [7 favorites]
*weeps bitter tears like a crocodile*
ok, will step back out of thread now, but fwiw, I was once responsible for managing Maggi's snail mail fulfillment center for a cookbook made by my employer, their ad agency, in the previous century, back in New Delhi. Best I stop here.
posted by infini at 12:03 PM on April 26, 2016 [7 favorites]
Warning: auto playing video
posted by Dr. Twist at 12:18 PM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Dr. Twist at 12:18 PM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
The entire reason I use Maggi sauce in my cooking is that it is chock full of MSG and makes food delicious. Interesting they claimed "no added" on the Maggi noodle label.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:28 PM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:28 PM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
Is it primarily third world and overseas countries, or is Nestlé an equal opportunity poisoner?
posted by BlueHorse at 12:33 PM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by BlueHorse at 12:33 PM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
My favorite part about reading longform articles in Fortune is that I absolutely, 100% cannot tell you if sentences like this:
For 45 minutes he gulped Perrier from a goblet and managed to keep his cool.
or
As for Nestlé, Bulcke and his team acknowledge that they didn’t play the Maggi crisis perfectly.
Are meant to be read with a straight face, or if they're laughing as hard at these jackasses as I am.
My least favorite part about longform articles from Fortune is the nonstop torrent of weird, yellow-peril-esque sweeping generalizations about those wacky Indians and their even wackier culture.
Also I just read ten thousand words of story, and I still have no idea if there was any lead in the noodles.
In the absence of a definitive answer, the next best thing would be a legal ruling.
No, the next best thing would be an answer from someone who isn't a paid industry shill or an understaffed government testing office involved in a lawsuit. Maybe the Indian government actually doesn't have any modern food-testing equipment, but you're trying to tell me that no one in the middle of this half-billion-dollar clusterfuck thought to send a package of ramen noodles to a testing facility in another country?
posted by Mayor West at 12:43 PM on April 26, 2016 [30 favorites]
For 45 minutes he gulped Perrier from a goblet and managed to keep his cool.
or
As for Nestlé, Bulcke and his team acknowledge that they didn’t play the Maggi crisis perfectly.
Are meant to be read with a straight face, or if they're laughing as hard at these jackasses as I am.
My least favorite part about longform articles from Fortune is the nonstop torrent of weird, yellow-peril-esque sweeping generalizations about those wacky Indians and their even wackier culture.
Also I just read ten thousand words of story, and I still have no idea if there was any lead in the noodles.
In the absence of a definitive answer, the next best thing would be a legal ruling.
No, the next best thing would be an answer from someone who isn't a paid industry shill or an understaffed government testing office involved in a lawsuit. Maybe the Indian government actually doesn't have any modern food-testing equipment, but you're trying to tell me that no one in the middle of this half-billion-dollar clusterfuck thought to send a package of ramen noodles to a testing facility in another country?
posted by Mayor West at 12:43 PM on April 26, 2016 [30 favorites]
Nestlé’s Half-Billion-Dollar Noodle Debacle in India
Man, that Calvin & Hobbes cartoon just took on a much darker aspect...
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:44 PM on April 26, 2016 [16 favorites]
Man, that Calvin & Hobbes cartoon just took on a much darker aspect...
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:44 PM on April 26, 2016 [16 favorites]
Could it be that the company simply didn’t bother to set stringent enough standards in the first place because regulation by the Indian government is so lax? Was the food safety regulator, the impressively-acronymed FSSAI, ever testing any product before giving it stamp of approval? If it was doing regular tests, Nestle and other companies would surely have been more careful. Clearly, the regulators at the government-controlled FSSAI failed to do their job.
CSE has also criticised those it believes are intent on making the pesticides affair an international trade dispute.
US trade official Frank Lavin last week warned India that bans on Coca-Cola and PepsiCo drinks could dent the country's chances of attracting investment from America.
CSE found that the regulations for the powerful and massive softdrinks industry are much weaker, indeed non-existent, as compared to those for the bottled water industry. The norms that exist to regulate the quality of cold drinks are inadequate, leaving this "food" sector virtually unregulated.
Big names entering a lucrative market where "lobbying" can make life so much easier. I remember them saying back in the day that it was India's lack of standards at fault, not their responsibility to ensure their customers weren't poisoned or to uphold global health standards.
posted by infini at 1:12 PM on April 26, 2016 [3 favorites]
CSE has also criticised those it believes are intent on making the pesticides affair an international trade dispute.
US trade official Frank Lavin last week warned India that bans on Coca-Cola and PepsiCo drinks could dent the country's chances of attracting investment from America.
CSE found that the regulations for the powerful and massive softdrinks industry are much weaker, indeed non-existent, as compared to those for the bottled water industry. The norms that exist to regulate the quality of cold drinks are inadequate, leaving this "food" sector virtually unregulated.
Big names entering a lucrative market where "lobbying" can make life so much easier. I remember them saying back in the day that it was India's lack of standards at fault, not their responsibility to ensure their customers weren't poisoned or to uphold global health standards.
posted by infini at 1:12 PM on April 26, 2016 [3 favorites]
The lack of definitive answer to the original question about lead is bizarre. Inconclusive results help things not at all. I'm curious how alternative scenarios of crisis management would have played out in favor or against Nestle. It seems if they were aggressive in countering the claims, it could have easily made them look worse. Hell, there are people in Tennessee coming down with measles, and we actually know vaccines are safe. More aggressive action by pharmaceutical companies would likely only be interpreted as further proof that their vaccines are dangerous.
posted by 2N2222 at 1:47 PM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by 2N2222 at 1:47 PM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
I remember when this broke some while back. Our family doesn't eat it all the time but we usually had a few packs somewhere in the cupboard just in case. We threw out every package once we found out about the possible lead contamination and no one in our extended family or group of friends has since gone back. That particular brand of food has been tarnished forever. Goodbye.
posted by Fizz at 1:51 PM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Fizz at 1:51 PM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
More aggressive action by pharmaceutical companies would likely only be interpreted as further proof that their vaccines are dangerous.
Undoubtedly. Yet vaccines are much, much, much more tightly regulated than food products. As long as food products don't make explicit health claims on their packaging, they can slide through the regulatory radar much more easily than can (for instance) a subpotent or impure batch of vaccine.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 2:58 PM on April 26, 2016
Undoubtedly. Yet vaccines are much, much, much more tightly regulated than food products. As long as food products don't make explicit health claims on their packaging, they can slide through the regulatory radar much more easily than can (for instance) a subpotent or impure batch of vaccine.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 2:58 PM on April 26, 2016
Why Nestle is one of the most hated companies in the world..
In case you might have forgotten the CEO of Nestle thinks the world's water supplies should be privatized.
Nestle scandals so far - Infant formula, Water controversies, Labour relations, Human rights and child labour, and of course spying on critics.
posted by adamvasco at 3:35 PM on April 26, 2016 [10 favorites]
In case you might have forgotten the CEO of Nestle thinks the world's water supplies should be privatized.
Nestle scandals so far - Infant formula, Water controversies, Labour relations, Human rights and child labour, and of course spying on critics.
posted by adamvasco at 3:35 PM on April 26, 2016 [10 favorites]
I read this article earlier and found it fascinating; I then immediately placed an order for Maggi masala noodles.
posted by padraigin at 3:37 PM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by padraigin at 3:37 PM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
Huh, I have a packet of Maggi 2-Minute noodles in my cupboard (well actually on my desk now) and I guess it's going in the trash. Also they expired in 2014. I really should know better than to buy food from the dollar store, I'm glad I only ate one packet.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 3:41 PM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 3:41 PM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
The fact that they couldn't get to the bottom of this is maddening.
Either Nestle screwed up and is lying, or the FSSAI does not have the resources to competently perform the regulatory function that it is tasked to.
Either of these, unchecked, has the potential for disastrous public health consequences, and yet the way that this is left, both sides are just claiming that they were right all along and nothing will change.
I mean -- I'm not in love with some of the business decisions that Nestle makes, but I think that the assumption that they are at fault here (i.e., that there were unsafe levels of lead in the product in the first place), is a dangerous one.
posted by sparklemotion at 3:43 PM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
Either Nestle screwed up and is lying, or the FSSAI does not have the resources to competently perform the regulatory function that it is tasked to.
Either of these, unchecked, has the potential for disastrous public health consequences, and yet the way that this is left, both sides are just claiming that they were right all along and nothing will change.
I mean -- I'm not in love with some of the business decisions that Nestle makes, but I think that the assumption that they are at fault here (i.e., that there were unsafe levels of lead in the product in the first place), is a dangerous one.
posted by sparklemotion at 3:43 PM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
It reads to me that Fortune is being tactful, as you would when you want to have Indian people buying your magazine, and that there was never any lead in the noodles.
I wonder if the article is also hinting at anti-bribery actions being implicated, since it mentions them twice - once as part of Nestle's corporate and social responsibility policy, and directly as being a rumour.
I haven't bought Nestle for twenty years. God, I miss Rolos.
posted by alasdair at 3:47 PM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
I wonder if the article is also hinting at anti-bribery actions being implicated, since it mentions them twice - once as part of Nestle's corporate and social responsibility policy, and directly as being a rumour.
I haven't bought Nestle for twenty years. God, I miss Rolos.
posted by alasdair at 3:47 PM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
Fortune is being tactful, as you would when you want to have Indian people buying your magazine, and that there was never any lead in the noodles.
But the people who buy Fortune are generally pro-business so why not be explicit about clearing the company of actual wrong-doing?
If anything, it would make the story stronger as a cautionary tale about not knowing the regulatory environment of the country that you are in, and how having a robust quality control system isn't enough to keep from getting burnt. When the story is open-ended, like this one is, it just makes Nestle seem sleazy. Which is a shame, if Nestle really is as committed to food safety as they like to say that they are.
posted by sparklemotion at 4:01 PM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
But the people who buy Fortune are generally pro-business so why not be explicit about clearing the company of actual wrong-doing?
If anything, it would make the story stronger as a cautionary tale about not knowing the regulatory environment of the country that you are in, and how having a robust quality control system isn't enough to keep from getting burnt. When the story is open-ended, like this one is, it just makes Nestle seem sleazy. Which is a shame, if Nestle really is as committed to food safety as they like to say that they are.
posted by sparklemotion at 4:01 PM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
Companies like Nestle have terrible reputations (with good reason) and are vulnerable to murky charges because of that but I wonder if India is aware that other companies around the world see this stuff and dicide to invest their money elsewhere. The Indian government has a reputation too.
posted by Bee'sWing at 4:13 PM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Bee'sWing at 4:13 PM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
Ahhh my best intentions didn't take and I'm eating a dollar store chocolate bar, avenge me Metafilter
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 4:49 PM on April 26, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 4:49 PM on April 26, 2016 [4 favorites]
fimbulvetr: "The entire reason I use Maggi sauce in my cooking is that it is chock full of MSG and makes food delicious. Interesting they claimed 'no added' on the Maggi noodle label."
Oh, but it's true. They didn't add any MSG. All the MSG in their noodles is the same naturally-occurring MSG you might find in the noodles picked from any noodle tree in the wild.
posted by koeselitz at 5:29 PM on April 26, 2016 [9 favorites]
Oh, but it's true. They didn't add any MSG. All the MSG in their noodles is the same naturally-occurring MSG you might find in the noodles picked from any noodle tree in the wild.
posted by koeselitz at 5:29 PM on April 26, 2016 [9 favorites]
I dislike international mega-corporations. I dislike Nestle and its aloof colonial bullshit. I love Maggi. I dislike Indian bureaucracy and corruption. I dislike the Indian media. I like India. I dislike shoddy science. I dislike cover-ups. I REALLY dislike Baba Ramdev. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO FEEL.
posted by Ragini at 5:35 PM on April 26, 2016 [12 favorites]
posted by Ragini at 5:35 PM on April 26, 2016 [12 favorites]
oh no. I was eating the Maggi Masala noodles around the time they were being exported. :/ wondered why I was seeing more of them.
... they were tasty though....
posted by aielen at 5:39 PM on April 26, 2016
... they were tasty though....
posted by aielen at 5:39 PM on April 26, 2016
Eat shit Nestlé, same way everyone else does when they buy one of your chocolates.
posted by turbid dahlia at 5:46 PM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by turbid dahlia at 5:46 PM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
The entire reason I use Maggi sauce in my cooking is that it is chock full of MSG and makes food delicious. Interesting they claimed "no added" on the Maggi noodle label.
I have chicken salt from Australia. MSG is the second ingredient on the list. I love it so much because Americans seem have an aversion to savoury food and it makes fries so damn tasty.
posted by Talez at 6:34 PM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
I have chicken salt from Australia. MSG is the second ingredient on the list. I love it so much because Americans seem have an aversion to savoury food and it makes fries so damn tasty.
posted by Talez at 6:34 PM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
All the MSG in their noodles is the same naturally-occurring MSG you might find in the noodles picked from any noodle tree in the wild.
Wheat flour has naturally occurring free glutamic acid so yeah, there is naturally-occurring MSG in them noodle trees.
posted by Talez at 6:37 PM on April 26, 2016 [13 favorites]
Wheat flour has naturally occurring free glutamic acid so yeah, there is naturally-occurring MSG in them noodle trees.
posted by Talez at 6:37 PM on April 26, 2016 [13 favorites]
And in that sense the Maggi episode is certain to be studied by MBA students and public relations executives looking for lessons for years to come.
Heh, true that; we actually did this as a case-study a few months back. (And the team I was coaching ended up with a lot of recommendations that Maggi themselves implemented eventually, like getting moms to talk about Maggi, although they didn't think about engaging regulators at all)
On topic, a couple of things: as Wikipedia puts it, MSG is one of the most abundant naturally occurring non-essential amino acids. It is safe for consumption and doesn't need a tolerance requirement in the US, has been so since 1959. You're likely to find MSG in tomatoes, potatoes, Parmesan cheese etc. Paranoia about MSG is essentially Chinese restaurant syndrome; there's simply no scientific evidence to suggest that seasoning that East Asians have used for hundreds of years can be bad for health.
From a regulatory standpoint then, MSG has never been the problem at all. It's always been lead that was the issue. Thing with lead is this: because it has dehydrated onions, turmeric powder etc, the concentration of lead in the unmixed Maggi condiments ("Tastemaker") is higher than that in prepared Maggi. Which is how it is for most drink-concentrates and drinks, for instance; the permissible limit in India for drink-concentrates is 2.0 PPM, while that for drinks is 0.5PPM. Notably, that for turmeric powder is 10PPM, which is a major ingredient in Indian Maggi's flavouring.
Crucially, given that the new Guru-led conglomerates like that of Baba Ramdev are getting into the instant noodles game, it is notable that Ayurvedic medicines have much higher lead concentrations than anything else out there, 73,900 PPM of lead in a fertility pill that is meant to be ingested four times daily. No regulator has been able to touch any of these folks at all.
posted by the cydonian at 8:23 PM on April 26, 2016 [20 favorites]
Heh, true that; we actually did this as a case-study a few months back. (And the team I was coaching ended up with a lot of recommendations that Maggi themselves implemented eventually, like getting moms to talk about Maggi, although they didn't think about engaging regulators at all)
On topic, a couple of things: as Wikipedia puts it, MSG is one of the most abundant naturally occurring non-essential amino acids. It is safe for consumption and doesn't need a tolerance requirement in the US, has been so since 1959. You're likely to find MSG in tomatoes, potatoes, Parmesan cheese etc. Paranoia about MSG is essentially Chinese restaurant syndrome; there's simply no scientific evidence to suggest that seasoning that East Asians have used for hundreds of years can be bad for health.
From a regulatory standpoint then, MSG has never been the problem at all. It's always been lead that was the issue. Thing with lead is this: because it has dehydrated onions, turmeric powder etc, the concentration of lead in the unmixed Maggi condiments ("Tastemaker") is higher than that in prepared Maggi. Which is how it is for most drink-concentrates and drinks, for instance; the permissible limit in India for drink-concentrates is 2.0 PPM, while that for drinks is 0.5PPM. Notably, that for turmeric powder is 10PPM, which is a major ingredient in Indian Maggi's flavouring.
Crucially, given that the new Guru-led conglomerates like that of Baba Ramdev are getting into the instant noodles game, it is notable that Ayurvedic medicines have much higher lead concentrations than anything else out there, 73,900 PPM of lead in a fertility pill that is meant to be ingested four times daily. No regulator has been able to touch any of these folks at all.
posted by the cydonian at 8:23 PM on April 26, 2016 [20 favorites]
Given that this story has no definite conclusion on the lead question, probably the main takeaway here is: don't eat a lot of processed foods, especially not mass-produced ones. Who (actually) knows what's ending up in them. Contamination leading to long-term health issues could be transient enough not to be caught. Contamination leading to acute health problems is a different matter because people get sick right away, but something like elevated levels of lead is going to take years to manifest and is going to be difficult to tie back to a specific product. Just say no to those delicious tempting instant noodles.
posted by mantecol at 8:38 PM on April 26, 2016
posted by mantecol at 8:38 PM on April 26, 2016
Is it just me, or is there an undertone of don't even try being a good company or worry about high quality because look what happened to Nestle? (Although whether they are really trying is rather dubious everything considered). Better to just concentrate on marketing and PR and play the system. Also, more than a whiff of panic from Fortune that India is becoming a hostile market for globocorps and what a worrisome example that is.
posted by blue shadows at 9:05 PM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by blue shadows at 9:05 PM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
Also, more than a whiff of panic from Fortune that India is becoming a hostile market for globocorps and what a worrisome example that is.
More accurately, that this hostility hasn't gone away, regardless of which party is in power, since the late 1970s when they threw Coca Cola and IBM out.
posted by infini at 12:10 AM on April 27, 2016
More accurately, that this hostility hasn't gone away, regardless of which party is in power, since the late 1970s when they threw Coca Cola and IBM out.
posted by infini at 12:10 AM on April 27, 2016
The "you won't get investment" argument fails to hold up when the Indian market was closed, and ignored for most of four decades, and we didn't all starve.
posted by infini at 12:11 AM on April 27, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by infini at 12:11 AM on April 27, 2016 [7 favorites]
I'm old enough to have once carried a sign that said "Crunch Nestlé Quik"
posted by Sphinx at 1:12 AM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Sphinx at 1:12 AM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]
Mayor West: "Also I just read ten thousand words of story, and I still have no idea if there was any lead in the noodles. "
You're saying they buried the lead?
posted by chavenet at 2:23 AM on April 27, 2016 [11 favorites]
You're saying they buried the lead?
posted by chavenet at 2:23 AM on April 27, 2016 [11 favorites]
this isn't reddit and i'm mad at you
posted by Night_owl at 5:50 AM on April 27, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Night_owl at 5:50 AM on April 27, 2016 [2 favorites]
A vile company.
"Nestlé Is Trying to Break Us": A Pennsylvania Town Fights Predatory Water Extraction
posted by adamvasco at 9:49 AM on April 27, 2016 [2 favorites]
"Nestlé Is Trying to Break Us": A Pennsylvania Town Fights Predatory Water Extraction
posted by adamvasco at 9:49 AM on April 27, 2016 [2 favorites]
For me the telling factor in the lead question was that, during this crisis, Maggi was tested by the food safety laboratories of many western countries and approved for consumption. If we trust Health Canada and the USDA when it comes to domestic foods, why would the case be different here?
Sure, there are conspiracy theories that Nestle uses better quality ingredients for export. But why would they bother to do that for the relatively tiny export market and not the huge domestic Indian one? And it all comes from the same factories anyway.
posted by Kevin Street at 3:19 PM on April 27, 2016
Sure, there are conspiracy theories that Nestle uses better quality ingredients for export. But why would they bother to do that for the relatively tiny export market and not the huge domestic Indian one? And it all comes from the same factories anyway.
posted by Kevin Street at 3:19 PM on April 27, 2016
There's an issue with samples selectively being sent for testing vs samples taken off the rack in a shop.
posted by infini at 5:23 AM on April 28, 2016
posted by infini at 5:23 AM on April 28, 2016
Kevin Street: “For me the telling factor in the lead question was that, during this crisis, Maggi was tested by the food safety laboratories of many western countries and approved for consumption. If we trust Health Canada and the USDA when it comes to domestic foods, why would the case be different here? ¶ Sure, there are conspiracy theories that Nestle uses better quality ingredients for export. But why would they bother to do that for the relatively tiny export market and not the huge domestic Indian one? And it all comes from the same factories anyway.”
So – uh – you're suggesting that it's on the level of "conspiracy theories" even to believe that Nestlé, the largest food company in the world by several orders of magnitude, would have complicated enough supply chains to differentiate between products intended for different markets with different regulatory bodies? You're suggesting that a company that does advertising and packaging in hundreds of different languages and 194 different countries just manufactures all of their products, without any distinctions, at factories in India and makes no distinction between them when shipping them out?
Besides, this is just factually incorrect. "It all comes from the same factories" – no, it absolutely doesn't. Maggi was founded in Switzerland in 1885; Germany is still one of its major markets, and their flagship factory is still in Singen, Germany. Here's another one in Feira de Santana, Brazil. Their factory in Jurong, Singapore opened in the 1960s. And if that isn't enough, Nestlé-Maggi has factories across the United States. In Canada specifically, Nestlé-Maggi admits openly that the products imported from India are slightly different from products sold domestically in India.
In short, it's blindlingly clear that Nestlé-Maggi has both the capability and the motivation to differentiate their products for different markets and different nations according to their regulatory strictness. The fact that Maggi products sold in the United States and Canada happen to pass muster with those nations' regulatory bodies doesn't mean anything for the Maggi products sold in India. No matter how much Nestlé-Maggi would like us to believe that they're just blindly shipping the exact same product everywhere, that obviously isn't the case.
posted by koeselitz at 8:22 AM on April 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
So – uh – you're suggesting that it's on the level of "conspiracy theories" even to believe that Nestlé, the largest food company in the world by several orders of magnitude, would have complicated enough supply chains to differentiate between products intended for different markets with different regulatory bodies? You're suggesting that a company that does advertising and packaging in hundreds of different languages and 194 different countries just manufactures all of their products, without any distinctions, at factories in India and makes no distinction between them when shipping them out?
Besides, this is just factually incorrect. "It all comes from the same factories" – no, it absolutely doesn't. Maggi was founded in Switzerland in 1885; Germany is still one of its major markets, and their flagship factory is still in Singen, Germany. Here's another one in Feira de Santana, Brazil. Their factory in Jurong, Singapore opened in the 1960s. And if that isn't enough, Nestlé-Maggi has factories across the United States. In Canada specifically, Nestlé-Maggi admits openly that the products imported from India are slightly different from products sold domestically in India.
In short, it's blindlingly clear that Nestlé-Maggi has both the capability and the motivation to differentiate their products for different markets and different nations according to their regulatory strictness. The fact that Maggi products sold in the United States and Canada happen to pass muster with those nations' regulatory bodies doesn't mean anything for the Maggi products sold in India. No matter how much Nestlé-Maggi would like us to believe that they're just blindly shipping the exact same product everywhere, that obviously isn't the case.
posted by koeselitz at 8:22 AM on April 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
I guess you're right about differentiation between countries. It says they use a different kind of salt in the noodles bound for Canada. Interesting.
posted by Kevin Street at 12:36 PM on April 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Kevin Street at 12:36 PM on April 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
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posted by infini at 11:47 AM on April 26, 2016 [7 favorites]