Food safety officers seek clarifications on ITC's Yippee noodles

After Nestle’s Maggi, there seem to be question in store for ITC’s Yippee noodles. According to a report in The Times of India, the Uttarakhand food safety office has sought clarifications from the company about the claims it has made on the label of this popular brand. The company has been asked to respond in 15 days about the nutritional claims it makes on the packet. The notice was issued on Friday, according to the report. The food safety officials had tested samples of Yippee Magic Masala and Classic Masala from a store in Kaliyar in Haridwar, the report says. [caption id=“attachment_2306068” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Image courtesy: Twitter[/caption] The food safety office has asked the company to provide the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India-approved lab reports about the shelf-life of the both the versions. The aim is to check whether the claim that it is best before nine months from the date of manufacture is correct or not. ITC, in a clarification sent to Firstpost, had this to say: “The picking up of food samples and seeking of information by Food Safety Officers is a routine occurrence and part of the duties of the Food Safety Officer under the Food Safety and Standards Act 2006 and is not an out of ordinary event requiring  any  cause for concern to the public. ITC’s Yippee! Noodles are in full compliance with food safety laws, and are backed with ITC’s world-class internal laboratories as well as at FSSAI-approved, NABL-accredited external laboratories confirmation.

1. “The information sought by the Food Safety Officer pertains to statutory declarations required by the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, that appear on the label, and ITC is fully cooperating with the Food Safety Officer in providing the information required by him. It is pertinent to mention that ITC has obtained adequate scientific analysis substantiating all information before making such declarations on the pack.”

  Interestingly, the move by the food safety officers comes days after the company removed the ’no added MSG’ disclaimer from the packs. The move followed recent directions by the FSSAI, said a PTI report. Announcing its decision, the company had said earlier in a statement that under the Food Safety Standards Act, if a manufacturer adds MSG (monosodium glutamate) in its product, then only the quantum of MSG has to be declared. Moreover, the FSSAI, in connection with noodles of “another brand” (read Nestle’s Maggi), had held that such statement of having no MSG was “inappropriate”, ITC said. “Therefore, ITC is voluntarily taking steps to remove the phrase ’no added MSG’ from its labels in its new batches of packaging and consumers should ignore this on the current packaging. ITC would like to once again assure consumers that MSG is not added to Sunfeast YiPPee! Noodles,” ITC said. Unfortunately for ITC, the food safety authorities’ action comes at a time when the company is pushing the Yippee brand to make the most of the Maggi debacle. According to a report in the Business Standard on on 13 June, the company is distributing leaflets among retailers, explaining how it has conducted stringent tests on its products. “In all these tests, our food products have consistently been found to comply with all regulatory standards,” the report cited the leaflet as saying. The retailers are being told to show it to Maggi’s loyal customers in a bid to woo them to Yippee. However, the FSSAI move is in line with the expectations of many an analyst who had predicted the Maggi incident to have a cascading impact on other brands too. Reliance Securities, for one, had said in a report on Nestle it sees the ignominy extending to all brands in the category in general and not just dent one particular brand as FSSAI pushes to strictly implement the new norms on food safety across all packaged food products. “This would force all the companies in the segment, like Dabur (in Honey), ITC (Sunfeast, Yipee, Kitchens of India), Britannia, Parle, Pepsico and HUL (Knorr, Kissan, Magnum), to declare in detail the ingredients used in their packaged products,” the brokerage had said. Interestingly, much before the FSSAI crackdown on Nestle began and gave rise to a debate on food safety issues in India, Consumer Education & Research Society (CERS) had found that many popular instant noodles brands are deceiving consumers on nutrition claims they make on the labels. According to a report in Moneylife published in 2012, in-house laboratory tests conducted by CERS found that 15 brands made fake health claims and have nutritional levels way below their claims. The brands included Maggi, Top Ramen, Knorr, Ching’s Secret, Sunfeast Yippee!, Foodles, Tasty Treat and Wai Wai X-press. “Some of the common findings for most of the samples tested included high level of sodium salts, significantly low fibre content, high amount of fats and several other shocking factors. The brands that claimed ‘Healthy’, ‘wholesome’, ‘enriched with proteins and iron’ and ‘full of fibre’, were refuted by the test findings as going way above the safe limit of several harmful elements,” the report quoted CERS as saying in a release. Clearly, it is high time the FSSAI started testing all the brands in this category.