Maggi Tops Noodles Charts Amidst all Controversies

By siliconindia | Monday, 18 April 2016, 06:58 Hrs

BENGALURU: Barely a few months post the ban lift on Maggie, it is reported that the popular noodles manufacturing brand has returned to the top position in the country, with close to half the share of the market estimated at a little over Rs 2,000 crore. Post examining of the data by market researcher Neilsen, it is evident that the share of the instant snack was over 48 percent in February but still lower compared to the 77 percent shares it possessed at the same time last year.

Nestle India Chairman Suresh Narayanan has said that variants such as, oats and atta noodles would be back on the shelves in the coming few days and the same will be available from Maggi in over 2 million outlets. Following the ban by the nation’s food regulator, Nestle re-launched the three decade old instant snack brand in November. Before the controversy following the ban, Maggi used to contribute sales of about 30 percent of Nestles portfolio of products. According to data from Nestle, it can be seen that the sales of Nestle India declined to Rs 7,794 crore in 2015 from Rs 9,485 crore in 2014. A slowdown in the growth among consumer companies for the past five to six quarters has been observed where most of them have only shown growth in single digits. Narayanan acknowledged that there was a bit of loss of momentum but with the recent budget announcements the company expects to bounce back to achieve 7.5 percent to 8 percent GDP growth.

“In other categories, Nestle had started revving up in chocolates, beverages and dairy market and that a fairly robust set of launches and relaunches were under way in coffee under the Nescafe umbrella, under Nestea in beverages, in the chilled dairy portfolio and a few global products from the Switzerland-based wellness and health-related portfolio, which were being customised for the Indian market,” comments Narayanan.