Maggi, in new avatars, to 'recapture' market

Nestle India will be relaunching variants of its flagship instant noodles, Maggi, very soon to regain the lost market share, said Suresh Narayanan, the chairman and managing director of the India unit of the company.

The largest food company in the country is also gearing up launch products in other categories such as coffee, chocolates and dairy this year.

According to him, the beleaguered food major which suffered crores in losses apart from loss of goodwill and trust of its consumers over the alleged substandard quality of Maggi noodles last year will be back with renewed vigour in 2016.

"We have recaptured have 75 to 80 per cent of the market that we used to have before the crisis. We are also close to launching Atta (flour) and Cuppa (cup) noodle variants," Narayanan said.

Maggi noodles were supplied to some 3.8 million outlets before the ban by the food regulator last year.

While, Nestle could reach only 500,000 outlets by the end of November, 2015, after its launch on November 9, Maggi's reach touched 1.4 million by January this year.

According to Naraynan, Maggi's reach is now close to some three million outlets.

During the absence of Maggi in the market competitors have gained market share and new entrants such as Patanjali have launched their atta (flour) noodles.

However, Narayanan believes Nestle will regain its position soon as more variants re-occupy retail shelves and consumer confidence is rebuilt.

"In a competitive market, brands which can connect with its consumers will eventually emerge victorious," he said.

Maggi variants will be relaunched with attractive offers. Nestle may come up with new variants of Maggi as well.

While, Nestle generates some 30 per cent of its revenue from the brand Maggi which includes pasta, cooking masala (spices), sauce, soups and instant noodles. Dairy and infant nutrition contributes 45 per cent, chocolates and confectionaries 12 per cent, and coffee and beverages 13 per cent.

Over the last few years, while, the share of the Maggi brand has increased, categories such as chocolates, milk products and beverages showed a volume decline of 12.2 per cent, 2.3 per cent and 11 per cent, respectively in 2014.

"Nestle is currently working on and will come up with innovative (in Indian market) variants and products in these three categories within 2016", he said.

Narayanan believes that a crisis such as the one he and his company had to face last year will help Nestle India learn lessons that it could not have learnt otherwise. The crisis that raised the question of existence for the 103 years old entity in the country will help Nestle achieve feats that it could not.