Uttarakhand serves notice to Dixit.
By Dileep Thekkethil
BENGALURU: Nestle India is facing mounting criticism after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of Uttar Pradesh found harmful metals such as lead and monosodium glutamate above permissible levels in Maggi Noodles, the company’s top selling product.
Now, more adverse publicity follows for the firm with the news that Madhuri Dixit, the veteran Bollywood actress who appeared in one of the Maggi Noodles ad, promoting it as a nutritious product, has been served notice by the FDA of Uttarakhand state for endorsing a product that is now deemed unhealthy by authorities.
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Dixit has been asked to respond to the FDA notice within 15 days, explaining in detail about the circumstances that made her claim that Maggi Noodles is a nutritious food product.
Food Security officer Mahimanand Joshi said the 48-year-old actress has been asked to detail her claim in the Nestle ad.
“If she fails to respond to the notice within the stipulated time frame, a case could be registered against her,” he was quoted as saying in the media.
Other than Uttar Pradesh, the governments of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat have ordered their concerned FDI departments to test samples of Maggi Noodles for contamination.
Currently, Maggi Noodles brings 30% of the total revenue for Nestle India but, company sources say, as news has spread of the alleged contamination, sales of Maggi has declined 10-35 percent in many regions.
Maggi, popularly known as the two-minute-noodles, is considered as a “time-saving recipe” of mothers all over India. However, the allegations of harmful substances in the product is sure to see people evading it in large numbers.
The PR department of Nestle India will probably start a counter campaign – something similar to the one Amitabh Bachchan did for Cadbury after the worm-in-chocolate controversy.
According to PR experts, Dixit was a good option to kick-start such a campaign as she is a wife and mother of two, and enjoys great respectability among middle-class masses in India.
1 Comment
The case against her is more a moral issue than legal. If she had signed the contract to appear on the commercial well before this allegation against Maggi, she is bind by the contract irrespective of her belief in the product. The endorsers are carefully selected for the reason to make the public believe and brainwashed to the effect “if MD an All-Indian mother of two” is endorsing the product it must be healthy. If all boils down to what she knew and when she knew that the product is not health or has been recalled. very rarely the endorsers eat the product they are endorsing.
Also if this product is made in China-as most of the noodles are-that itself is circumspect for not only lead but other dangerous chemicals. After all, these are the kind folks who feed deadly melamine in milk to their own children.
Each party in the contract has “moral clause” to get out of the contract. But it is rarely used, since the lure of the money rules over the morals and show biz community is no exception.