Last two months have made consumers aware. Thanks to Maggi controversy, people buying food items at retail stores are looking at the back of the pack more attentively to check the nutritional information and the date of manufacture. The retailers are now demanding to shrink the timeline of delivery in the stores from manufacturers’ end to ensure fast movement of products.
A news report in The Economic Times informs, products take an average of at least 10 days to reach store shelves from the plants, except for perishables such as dairy products, which are delivered overnight. Retail development in the country has been impeded by poor roads and the lack of a cold-chain infrastructure.
Retailers have started to request for fresher stock with higher shelf life. While modern trade always had shelf-life policies, it is getting stringent now," Mayank Shah, deputy marketing manager at top biscuits maker Parle Products told The Economic Times.
Reliance Retail has introduced an extra round of safety checks across products in its 600 stores amid fears of a consumer backlash if a sub-standard or expired product is sold, said a person familiar with the development.
"Any product that has 70% of its shelf life remaining does not enter our stores," an executive of Reliance Retail said.
The FSSAI is preparing an adviso- strinry for retailers, which will hold them accountable for products they sell, including any that haven't been approved.
Yudhvir Singh Malik, the CEO of the food regulator, told ET last week that retailers could be vulnerable to regulatory and legal action if found to be defaulting on these parameters.
Tata Starbucks has earlier said, it has "initiated the suspension of applicable ingredients from certain products served in our stores" and is providing the regulator with documentation needed for its pending applications.
Organised grocery chains including Big Bazaar, Walmart India's Best Price Modern Wholesale, Easy Day, Nilgiris, K Raheja's HyperCity, Savemax Wholesale and Spar had started pulling Maggi off the shelves even before the FSSAI ban on the two minute snack and Nestle's recall.
"As a policy, we accept only those products which have 75% of their shelf life when they hit our stores," a senior official of a leading supermarket firm told the financial daily. He also added that most national companies have plants spread across the country and it's not always possible to distribute their products within a short span of time. "In the case of beverages or food products, where shelf life is less than a week, companies tend to keep production facilities near retail locations since most of them are regional players."
Following the Maggi controversy, a top consumer goods firm has postponed two launches, while some are allocating additional funds for research and development. "We are stepping up spends on product testing, especially in collaboration with external labs," Sunil Duggal, CEO at Dabur, which makes Real juices, told the ET.
(Image: Reuters)