Nestlé India has asked its distributors across the city to recall all varieties of Maggi noodles from the market, latest by June 15.
According to the mail sent to a major distributor in Patna on June 5, the company has asked it to immediately stop sale of the noodles and recall all the variants and sizes of the packets from the shops. The distributor, who has his agency in the Patna City area, confirmed that Nestlé India had asked him to abide by certain guidelines while recalling Maggi noodles from the shop.
According to plan, the recalled packets would be taken back by Nestlé to be destroyed somewhere near the city.
An official of Nestlé India, working at a Delhi-based office, said the company was thinking of destroying the recalled packets in the outskirts of the city from where it had been recalled but the final decision regarding the place where the packets would be destroyed, would be taken only after a talk with the state government.
The Telegraph spoke to two major distribution agency people to trace the reverse journey of Maggi from retail shops to distributors, distributors to warehouses and finally to the destruction point.
Store racks to distributor
"We have recalled around 400 cartons of Maggi with around 38,500 packets till today (Wednesday)," said Dilip Kumar, owner of Maruti Enterprises in Patna City, one of the distributors of Nestlé India.
According to Dilip, he has hired 13 people to execute the total recall of Maggi noodles from the market.
"Nestlé has asked us to recall all the batches at the earliest. At present, I have only 12 employees but I have hired services of 13 more people on a temporary basis to ensure complete recall of Maggi packets from the market," said Dilip.
Dilip said he had constituted a dedicated team to look after the recall target. "The 13 people, whom I have hired on a temporary basis, are looking after the recall target only. My permanent employees have divided their time to look after both sales (of other products) and the recall target. "We have other products too. We cannot let the sale of other products suffer. This is the reason we hired temporary employees to look after the recall target. Our permanent staff are also engaged in the work of recalling Maggi packets from the market. Whenever we send new people to bring back the Maggi packets from retail stores, one of our permanent employees always accompany them," added Dillip.
Dilip, however, could say anything about the quantity of Maggi still available in retail stores after his agency recalled hundreds of packets in the past four days. "It is quite impossible to tell you about the quantity in which packets are still available in the market because we don't know how much Maggi had been purchased by the time we started our recall drive. However, around 800 fresh cartons of Maggi were available with us before the company sent us a directive to recall packets from the market. We have already sent the lot back to the warehouse," said Dilip.
According to Dilip, earlier the sale of Maggi noodles was something between 1,800 and 2,000 cartons per month. Dilip said his distribution agency was handing a credit note (also called credit memo) to the retailers in the form of a voucher mentioning the number of packets returned, their batch number and their cost. "With the help of the credit note, the retailers can encash their due amount which they are supposed to get in lieu of the returned product. The retailers either can take cash or they can take other Nestlé products," said Dilip.
A credit note or credit memo is a commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer.
The seller usually issues a credit memo for the same or lower amount than the invoice, and then repays the money to the buyer or sets it off against a balance due from other transactions.
Distributor to warehouse
"After bringing back packets from the retail outlets, we paste a 'Not for sale' sticker on those. Even after sealing the carton, we again paste a 'Not for sale' sticker on each one of them and mention the batch number of packets and the number of packets returned," said Dilip.
The employees of the distributors/distributing agencies are working overtime to ensure complete recall of Maggi packets from market. The official of a Patliputra-based distribution agency (Patliputra Trading Company) said: "The working hours for our employee is 9am to 6pm but these days, they are working till 10.30pm to ensure total recall of the products. Till today (Wednesday), our agency pulled back around 350 cartons of Maggi from the market. So far, we have recalled the product from stores situated at Boring Road, Shivpuri, AG Colony and a few other areas," said the official.
According to the distribution agency, their role is complete after recalling the Maggi packets from retail stores. "Once we have recalled the Maggi packets, our job is done. The warehouse sends its trucks to take away the recalled packets. Nestlé India's warehouse is situated at Karmalichak (around 25km east of Patna)," said an official of Patliputra Trading Company, another distributor of Nestlé India in Patna.
Dilip said once the distributor has recalled the complete lot of Maggi from market, after one week it would again send its employees to check whether any Maggi packet has been left in the market or not.
Warehouse to destruction point
While a Delhi-based Nestlé India official said recalled packets would be destroyed at a designated place after holding talks with the state government, a major distributor said the process of destroying the recalled Maggi packets had been started.
The distributor, however, could not say where the recalled packets were being destroyed.
Warehouse officials, however, did not wish to talk to this correspondent on the issue. Nitish Kumar, the manager of a Patna-based warehouse (situated at Karmalichak) refused to comment.
