The Maggi lesson

More organised retail would make food safety easier to police

More than 10 states have imposed a ban on the sales of the Maggi brand of instant noodles, owned by Swiss multinational Nestle, after a scare involving reports of higher than permissible levels of lead and monosodium glutamate. A nationwide recall of Maggi packets has been issued - the first of its kind - by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, or FSSAI. Nestle itself beat the regulator to the draw, recalling packets of Maggi a few hours before the government notice on Friday - although the company insisted that Maggi was, in fact, perfectly safe to eat. Meanwhile, the consumer affairs department has said it will seek damages in consumer court from Nestle on behalf of Indian consumers, and has asked the government's lawyers to come up with "a watertight case". It must be stressed that, although some government laboratories found excess levels of lead and MSG, other labs did not. So the exact safety of Maggi remains disputed. But whatever the resolution, somebody will come out of this not looking too good. If Maggi is problematic, then one of the most iconic of brands, distinctively Indian in spite of being owned by a multinational, will have been severely dented. And if Maggi is cleared of the charges, then the food safety administration will justifiably be accused of causing a major scare before all the facts are in.

There is, however, a larger point to be made here - and it is fortunate this discussion is taking place at all. Firstly, the fact is that regulators are going after Maggi not just because there may be something wrong with it, but because they can. They can because it is a nationwide brand owned by a well-known company which is capable of responding to regulatory action. Secondly, to the extent that Maggi can be recalled from shelves, that is thanks to the penetration of organised retail; the large proportion of packets that are with small shopkeepers may not wind up being taken off the market. Finally, the fact that Maggi has considerable brand value that Nestle wants to protect is precisely why the company has also tried to take the lead in recalling the noodle packets, even while tom-tomming lab results that say there's nothing wrong with them. These three reasons are a clear demonstration of the superiority of modern, organised retail when it comes to ensuring consumer safety and proper regulation.

After all, it is the unorganised sector that is much more likely to poison consumers or make them sick. Also reported last week was a study by doctors at a Delhi-based nutrition institute which found that street food in the city was high in faecal matter, and had several orders of magnitude more coliform bacteria than was safe. Even when it comes to heavy metals like lead, a recent report from M S University, Baroda, found cadmium and arsenic at dangerous levels in vegetables in the market; and milk is known to be heavily adulterated in India, including with detergent. Cracking down on all this is impossible while the food chain remains unorganised. Ensuring the spread of organised retail, which will require supportive regulations and investment rules, is thus a matter of public health.