The document summarizes Nestle India's strategy to rebuild after a ban on its Maggi noodles product in 2015 due to food safety issues. It discusses Nestle India's plans to enter new categories, build a more balanced portfolio beyond dependence on Maggi, focus on health and nutrition, increase penetration in large cities, increase advertising, and improve direct communication with consumers. The managing director states that their actions over the next four years will shape the company's direction for decades to come as they aim to reconstruct what was demolished by the Maggi ban.

1. Magic Phir Chalega Kya?!....
The branded packaged food market accounts for about 20% of the Rs3.2 trillion-a-year packaged
consumer products market in India. The consumer packaged food market is projected to grow at
around 12-15% annually till 2019, according to a September 2015 report by industry lobby
Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and advisory firm KPMG. Unlike
Maggi noodles, it won’t be a volume game anymore.
The Swiss company wants to quickly leverage India’s rapid urbanization, tap the educated
middle class and working women, as well as benefit from rising health awareness. All this, with
an eye, on maintaining profitability. The reason: Narayanan wants to push what he calls “motion
initiatives", or initiatives that will help the company grow faster, that will gradually ensure the
company’s portfolio is a lot more “balanced beyond the 30% dependence" that it has on Maggi
today. The primary topic at Vevey even on the final day of the strategy meet was on how to
restore Maggi noodles to its former glory in terms of market share, volume and trust.
In the three decades, since it launched Maggi noodles in India in 1983, Nestle had a smooth
journey. Growth was steady— Maggi noodles earned 29.23% of Nestle India’s total sales in
2014, more than double the revenue share in 2001. Given the steady growth, the company even
stopped looking at new segments or product categories. Maggi reached every nook and corner of
the country—from remote villages in the plains to mountain ranges 18,000-feet above sea level,
to become the most popular packaged snack in India.
5th June 2015, the world Environment day, Nestle India’s single-largest revenue earner faced a
nationwide ban for a six-month period on allegations that it contained monosodium glutamate—a
flavour enhancer—and lead in excess of prescribed limits. Between 5th June and 1st September
2015, Nestle had to recall 38,000 tonnes of Maggi noodles from millions of retail shelves, was
directed to destroy them, had to tackle regulators and other government authorities to establish
that Maggi was safe.
Sitting in his glass-walled cabin at the five-storey Nestle building in Gurgaon overlooking the
expressway to Delhi, Narayanan sounds confident: “We are reconstructing the demolished
house."
Work has already started. In the last two quarters, it has introduced some 30 products, including
a few extensions of its coffee brand Nescafe, Nestle Ceregrow cereal, health food drink Nestle
A+ Pro-Grow, a new range of Greek yoghurt called Nestle a+ Grekyo and a few new variants of
Maggi instant noodles, and increased its focus on larger cities.
Enter new categories, build a balanced portfolio to reduce dependence on a single product, focus
on health and nutrition, increase penetration in top towns, beef up advertising, and, most
importantly, communicate much more with the consumers directly: that was the crux of what

2. Narayanan returned with from Vevey. “Our actions for the next four years would set the tone for
the next few decades," he says.
Edited by : Reports from News Excerpts by Dr Vijayendra Gupta