As part of its commitment to help make Maggi Simply Good by 2020, Nestle India Ltd has launched the iron-fortified variant of the noodle brand. As per the 2015-16 National Family Health Survey, about 53 per cent females and approximately 22.7 per cent males aged between 15 and 45 are iron-deficient (anaemic), and there is an almost equal split across rural and urban India.
The company is not only exploring ways to fortify its mass-consumption products to bridge the gap and contribute to the larger national objective, but is also on a mission to support home cooks with healthier and tastier choices, by simplifying ingredients and reducing sodium.
Suresh Narayanan, chairman and managing director, feels that with the Simply Good 2020 initiative, they are building a new, a better, and an even stronger Maggi brand, driven by their purpose, which is enhancing the quality of life and contributing to a healthier future. It is a step where they want to introduce products which offer healthier choices to the consumers as they simplify their ingredients and encourage home cooking. At the forefront of this drive is the commitment to reshape Maggi products to emphasise the use of familiar and common ingredients that people know and use for home cooking, from their own kitchen cupboards.
With 2.5 billion portions of Maggi Masala noodles consumed annually in India, the changes will have a major positive impact. It is currently consumed by one-third of India’s total households (i e by nine crore families spread homogeneously across segments, roughly seven million serves a day).
Given the scale and popularity, Maggi Masala noodles offer a powerful platform to address iron deficiency through the iron-fortified variant, which will provide for 15 per cent of the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) and is a small step towards addressing iron deficiency.
Additionally, in its quest for improving ingredients, the company shall continue to bring down sodium levels per serving. Over the last ten years, it has brought the sodium levels in its Maggi portfolio down by 32.7 per cent. It is committed to further bringing it down by ten per cent by 2020.
This is a reaffirmation of Nestlé’s global commitments on nutrition, health and wellness, as the company rightly poised to bring in this change in India. It also places high priority on providing consumers with nutrition information on food labels so they can make informed dietary choices.
The company has also introduced guideline daily amounts (GDAs) on packs to give transparent information about the nutrients like energy, total fat, saturated fat, sugar and sodium.