Indian states of Gujarat and Jammu and Kashmir yesterday banned the sale of Nestle’s instant noodle brand ‘Maggi’ for a month after the product failed the food safety test, reports PTI. The government of Tamil Nadu state has also banned the sale, storage and manufacturing of Maggi and three other brands of noodles for three months. Earlier, Delhi and Uttarakhand states had banned the sale of Maggi noodles. Meanwhile, Nepal is testing Nestle’s Maggi noodles imported from India for lead content and may impose a ban on the item if any toxic chemical is found above permissible limit, said officials in Kathmandu. The Gujarat government has also asked the company to withdraw all its stock of Maggi from the state.
Apart from Maggi, Gujarat also tested one sample each of instant noodles of Sunfeast and S.K. Foods and has banned the latter for a month as high lead content of 4 PPM was found in it. “Monosodium glutamate, which should not be present in the product, was found in all the samples tested. For these reasons, the government has banned the sale and distribution of Maggi noodles for one month in the state. The government has also informed Nestle to withdraw all its Maggi stock from Gujarat,” Gujarat Health Minister Nitin Patel said Gujarat and Jammu and Kashmir are the third and fourth states to ban Maggi after Delhi and Uttarakhand. It has also banned noodle products of S K Foods.
Meanwhile, Officials of Department of Commerce and Supply Management in Nepal said that it would put ban on sales and import of Maggi noodles in Nepal if the laboratory test shows the noodle is 'inedible.' "We will put a ban on the brand by issuing a public notice if the test result confirms presence of higher-level of lead," said Hari Narayan Belbase, director of Department of Commerce and Supply Management. "We have been coordinating with DoFTQC (Department of Food Technology and Quality Control) on this issue," Belbase was quoted as saying by My Republica