Resurrecting Brand Maggi

Has brand Maggi been successfully revived? Nestlé India is on an overdrive to expand its products around health and wellness.

- Ashish Sinha

CALLING IT a “crisis” that no company should have to go through, Nestlé India chairman and managing director Suresh Narayanan recalls the five-month ban on Maggi (June-October 2015) as an “unfortunate” incident. “People dragged the brand through fire and mud. The brand not only survived, it came out cleaner and stronger,” says the 56-year-old Narayanan who took charge of Nestlé India in July 2015, amidst the worst crisis that hit the company in its 100-year history in India. On 9 November, 2016 (the day demonetisation kicked in), Nestlé India completed one full year of the successful relaunch of brand Maggi.

According to Narayanan, the popular instant noodles brand Maggi is nowhere near its dominant 75 per cent market share in 2014, when the entire instant noodles category was estimated at Rs 2,200 crore. “Today, we are inching towards 60 per cent market share. A lot of work still remains,” he says. This is because the entire category of instant noodles has shrunk in size. “Many consumers gave up on instant noodles since Maggi was not present. Now they are back,” says Narayanan.