Snapdeal offers Maggi noodles on 'flash sale’

Marking a first for a food product, Nestle's Maggi noodles is being sold via unique "flash sale model" on e-commerce platform Snapdeal, with the online retailer seeking pre-registrations of buyers for the instant noodles brand that made a comeback Monday after a gap of five months.

Maggi was banned after it was to have lead content allegedly beyond permissible limits.

Flash sales or deal-of-the-day is an e-commerce business model in which a website offers a single product for sale for a limited period of time. Potential customers have to register to avail the deal.

Snapdeal opened up registrations Monday evening and the sale will begin from 12 November.

The e-commerce company, however, did not disclose the quantity of packets that will go on sale but merely said "limited stock will be available".

Maggi is back on retail shelves in select markets from Monday, five months after it was banned.

Nestle India, which sells the Maggi brand, is rolling out the product in a staggered manner across the country, except in eight states where it is still not allowed.

Maggi has been relaunched in 100 towns through 300-odd distributors and will be rolled out in many more areas in the coming days, Nestle India's new chairman and managing director Suresh Narayanan said.

The popular brand of noodles had passed tests by three government-accredited laboratories, as ordered by the Bombay High Court which in August had lifted its ban on the instant noodles that was imposed by food safety regulators.

Nestle India's new boss, Suresh Narayanan, has told the BBC the tests which were carried out on the noodles were "highly unreliable''.

It paved way for Nestle India to bring back Maggi in the market after it was banned in June by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) which stated that it was "unsafe and hazardous" for consumption due to presence of lead beyond permissible limits. The company withdrew the noodles brand from the market.

Nestle had to destroy 400 million packets of Maggi products and stop production in the wake of the tests. The product recall cost the company $67 million.