All three laboratories mandated by the Bombay High Court to test Maggi samples have cleared the noodles with lead content much below the permissible limits, the Nestle India said on Friday. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is yet to study the reports to give clean chit to the food giant.
A senior official from the FSSAI said that it will respond to the Nestle’s claim only after going through the lab reports.
In June, the country’s top food authority, the FSSAI, had banned Maggi noodles saying it was “unsafe and hazardous” for consumption after finding lead levels beyond permissible limits. The company had withdrawn the instant noodles from the market.
The court had ordered Nestle India to send five samples of each variant to three accredited labs in Punjab, Hyderabad and Jaipur and asked the labs to give their reports within six weeks. The samples were to drawn from 750 crates of samples lying with the company.
Now, with the green signal from the labs, the company has said that it will now commence manufacturing and will sell “only after the newly manufactured products are also cleared by the designated three laboratories”.
“We have received test results from all three laboratories mandated by the Hon’ble Bombay High Court to test Maggi Noodles samples. All the 90 samples, covering six variants, tested by these laboratories are clear with lead much below the permissible limits,” Nestle India said in a statement.
The company, which had earlier said it was planning to bring back the Maggi noodles in the market by this year end, further said that it is committed to reintroducing Maggi noodles “at the earliest”.
“In compliance with the orders of the Hon’ble Bombay High Court, we will now commence manufacture and will start selling only after the newly manufactured products are also cleared by the designated three laboratories,” the company added.
Stressing that Maggi noodles are safe, Nestle India said it has “conducted over 3,500 tests representing over 200 million packs in both national as well as international accredited laboratories and all reports are clear”.
In addition to these, various countries including USA, UK, Singapore, Australia and others have found Maggi Noodles manufactured in India safe for consumption, it added.
Soon after the ban in June, the Nestle India had challenged it in the Bombay High Court. In August, the court lifted the nation-wide ban imposed by the FSSAI on Maggi noodles but ordered a fresh test of samples of the product in three independent labs across India.