Popular instant noodles brand Maggi, may soon be back on shelves in the city, to the delight of its many fans.
“I will be very happy if Maggi comes back,” said T.P. Sneha, a student. A homemaker in Nanganallur, Tasneem Aferoz, said having Maggi noodles back would make for more relaxed weekends and fill in as emergency food. “I used to have it twice a week and I missed it,” she said.
On Friday, Nestle, the noodles’ manufacturer announced that test results from all three laboratories as mandated by the Bombay High Court, which checked 90 samples covering six variants, had come back clear, with lead much below permissible limits. But there’s still some time to go before Maggi could be back – manufacturing will commence now but sales will only begin after the newly-manufactured products also clear tests at the labs, its statement said.
A senior official of the State Food Safety department however said that only after instructions from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) would Maggi be allowed back in Tamil Nadu. “In any case, we will put the product through a test once again here,” he said.
In June, the Tamil Nadu government had banned the manufacture, stocking and sale of Maggi noodles and three other brands — Wai Wai Xpress Noodles, Reliance Select Instant Noodles, and Smith and Jones Chicken Masala Noodles — for a period of three months, on the grounds that the products contained unacceptable levels of lead.
The official said that while all three brands had been told to submit their products for re-testing, only Reliance had come forward so far. “Their products have been tested, and results are awaited,” he said. He added that all the instant noodle brands would now be put through regular, perhaps monthly tests.
The controversy over Maggi first erupted after the product was found to contain high levels of lead, a toxic metal, in a test done in Uttar Pradesh. In Tamil Nadu, tests found that at least six samples had lead content higher than the mandated 2.5 parts per million.
On June 5, the FSSAI had asked Nestle to withdraw its noodles from the market, stating that they were “unsafe and hazardous for human consumption” on the grounds of excessive lead, mislabeling of monosodium glutamate on the packets and the release of Maggi Oats Masala Noodles without product approval. Nestle had then withdrawn Maggi noodles.
On Saturday, a post on cleared test results on the ‘Meri Maggi’ Facebook page had 4,087 ‘likes’ with comments such as: “My dear Maggi we are so excited on your return, that it feels like a long lost friend is coming back.”
