Nestle India, which manufactures Maggi Noodles, will be prosecuted soon, the Uttar Pradesh Food Safety and Drug Administration has said. Its trouble started when a batch of Maggi Noodles was found to contain dangerous levels of lead. A complaint against Nestle India will be filed in the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate’s court in Barabanki district.
“FSDA Commissioner P P Singh has given permission to file a case against Nestle India in a local court here,” Barabanki Food Safety Officer V K Pandey said. The case will be lodged against the company’s Nestle Nagal Kalan Industrial Area unit (Haroli, Una in UP), Nestle India Limited, and an Easy Day outlet, among others, Pandey said.
There were no comments from the company. The Union Consumer Affairs Ministry has also asked the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India to look into the matter while Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said that a class action suit can also be initiated in the matter if a complaint is lodged in this regard with the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission.
The Food Safety and Drug Administration (FDA) in Uttar Pradesh had collected more than two dozen packs of instant noodles from stores across the state. According to a Reuters report, they found a lead concentration of 17.2 parts per million (ppm), which is way beyond the permissible limit. They also found very high levels of MSG.
Nestle India’s official statement said “We do not add Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) to Maggi Noodles. We use raw materials that may contain naturally occurring Glutamate and which could be confused with commercially produced MSG. Glutamate is safe and is found in everyday and high protein foods including tomatoes, peas, paneer, onions, milk.”
A company spokesman confirmed Uttar Pradesh had ordered it to withdraw the batch dating back to March 2014, but added the items concerned had either already been consumed or were beyond the sell-by date, making the recall difficult.
Soon after the recall of Maggi Noodles from across Uttar Pradesh, other states like Maharashtra and Gujarat also got Maggi noodles tested, results of which are awaited. Recently, Bollywood actress Madhuri Dixit also got a FDA Notice for endorsing Maggi noodles, with the FDA seeking a report from the actress within 15 days on claims made in the advertisement regarding the nutrition value of the ‘2-minute noodles’.
