Two Indian states to allow Nestle to sell Maggi noodles

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-34569582

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At least two Indian states have said Nestle's popular Maggi noodles can be sold again, just days after they were found to be safe in laboratory tests.

On Friday, Nestle said tests mandated by a Mumbai court showed lead levels in Maggi were within permissible limits.

In August, the court had lifted the ban, but ordered fresh tests before the product could go back on sale.

On Monday, authorities in Gujarat and Karnataka said as the tests had cleared the product, the ban was withdrawn.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) had banned the popular noodles in June citing tests that deemed the instant noodles to contain "unsafe and hazardous" amounts of lead. Nestle had challenged the government ban in court.

"We had technically not banned the sale of Maggi as we had not found anything wrong with it in the tests [we] conducted. We stopped sales on the basis of the directions from the central body [FSSAI]," Karnataka Health Minister UT Khader told BBC Hindi's Imran Qureshi on Monday.

"Now that the Bombay [Mumbai] high court decision has come, Maggi can resume sales in Karnataka subject to its samples being tested before it is introduced in the market," he added.

Gujarat's Health Minister Nitin Patil told BBC Hindi's Ankur Jain that the Maggi ban was lifted in the state after the high court order and now that the noodles have been cleared, they can be sold in the state.

On Friday, Nestle India said in a statement that it had received the test results from three laboratories mandated by the Bombay high court in August.

The tests had found all 90 samples, covering six varieties, safe for consumption, the statement added.

The company said it would "now commence manufacture and will start selling [the noodles] only after the newly manufactured products are also cleared by the designated three laboratories".

The company, which has 80% of India's instant noodles market, has already destroyed 400 million packets of Maggi products.

The instant noodles arrived in India in 1983 and can be found in corner shops across the country.