NEW DELHI:
Swiss FMCG biggie
Nestle may come out with its
popular infant formula
,
Cerelac
with ‘no added sugar’ in India. The company has already been on a journey to reduce it to a bare minimum, but this will gather momentum now, Nestle’s chairman and managing director Suresh Narayanan said here Monday.
“Hopefully we would like to see a product with no added sugar….the journey to make our products more efficacious continues, and the direction of the company is very clear.
The company has reduced sugar by 30% in the last five years ..the journey continues and what proportion gets dropped over a period of time, the
efficiency of science
and R&D will tell. But in the end position, we would like to look at a product at some time hopefully with no added sugar.”
The company’s MD tried to clear the air on the Cerelac controversy, and address concerns around the baby food brand, days after the Swiss biggie found itself in the eye of the storm. Recently, a report by Public Eye, a Swiss investigative organization and the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) charged that Cerelac baby cereal products sold in India contained added sugar. As against this, in Europe, the report claims, the company does not add any sugar to its infant nutrition products.
“As the curve becomes sharper, the time becomes longer ..what is important is the direction of the company is to lower it further..”, he said, when asked about a possible timeline.
He claimed its infant cereal brand Cerelac complies with local food norms, saying added sugars in the baby food are much lower than what India’s food regulator permits, and in compliance with Codex, the international food standards body.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), prescribes a maximum permissible level of added sugar to 13.6 gm per 100 gm of serving for baby cereal. On average, Nestle’s Cerelac brand contains 7.1 grams (per 100 gm).
“So I want to make this clear that there is nothing in this product that makes it a product that is potentially of any risk or any kind of harm to the child. We are well below the maximum limit’’, he said, pointing out `sugar and no added sugar’ products are present in Europe and Asia as well. So the unfortunate allegation that it is racially stereotyped is unfortunate, but untrue,” he added.
In Europe, there are some countries where added sugar gets subsumed in total sugar. And there are some places where total sugar and added sugar are declared separately. This is as per local regulation, he said.
The company did not elaborate further on the countries where this could be happening.
On taking on the challenge head on, he said, “three things are important–clarity, composure and professionalism. I’m not trying to stay quiet (on this). As a leader I’m paid to stand up in front. I took the bullets then, and I am taking the bullets now”.
Nearly a decade back, Narayan had battled the Maggie controversy, just after assuming office. The company had then faced backlash over the popular selling Maggie, which was considered `unsafe and hazardous for human consumption’.
Stating that there is no negative rub-off of the controversy, as these are medical products, Narayanan stated. “The medical fraternity is quite sanguine about this, and we have nothing to hide”.
The company has not received any formal communication from the FSSAI, but they have indicated that they will be taking samples from our factories, and from all the other infant formula and cereal manufacturers. So it will be an industry wide sampling that will be done, he stated.