The Maggi maker Nestle world's major & biggest Food offering company decides to reduce salt and sodium content in its Maggi offering, trimming sugar by 10% in KitKat & other dairy products, control portion in Munch, making India healthier.
The Swiss giant, which debuted Maggi into Indian Snack diet in the 1990s, will be initiating a "health drive" to other products categories: Nestle will now be focusing on low-sugar and low-salt variants in the food sector.
"The company is working on the nutrient profile of our products, trimming sodium, salt, sugar, saturated fats and trans-fats content in the food offering across all food content".
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) in 2015 banned Nestle's most popular product forcing the retailers to take the product off the shelf over allegations that it contained lead beyond permissible limits & for mislabelling of flavour enhancer monosodium glumate. In the absence of Maggi on the shelves for five months, rivals like ITC's Sunfeast Yippee & HUL's knorr gained market share in the interim. Still, the market leader in instant noodles has a market share of 60%.
The company has announced and taken over some global commitments of reducing sugars, sodium, saturated fats & trans-fats, introduce nutritious products, step up food fortification, removing artificial colours, restrict marketing to children, improving nutrition data.
Nestle's Indian arm registered a net profit decline post demonetisation of 8.66%, net profit to Rs. 167.3 crore in last qarter.
“We will extend our guidance on portions to our consumer recipes, and relevant teenager and adult products by 2020,” the statement adds. It also says that by the same year, it will remove all artificial colours from its products.
The company is keen to fortify products while removing artificial colouring and the copmany has already done with the intorduction of iron and iodine in the lastest variant of maggi. An company spokesperson said, that we are providing consumers with nutrition information on food labels, energy intake and key nutrients and portion guidance. The company has a 2020 plan, to provide all information on the product and etailers websites.
By 2020, Nestle will reduce added sugar by 5% and sodium by 10%. The company informed that by late 2016, it had deduced sugar by 8% and sodium by 10.5% in its foods and beverages.
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