My Tryst with Maggi

Maggi launched in 1983. And I was in the team that launched Top Ramen and Cup Noodles, in 1989 under Hindustan Lever (actually Brooke Bond India Limited). I have seen Maggi from up close as a competitor, and there won't be many like me, because only a few have done national launches for noodles.

Unfortunately, again due to an interpretation in the Packaging Commodities Act we had to withdraw Top Ramen from the market - top 30 towns. I can empathise with Maggi of what it takes to withdraw products you make with so much love and destroy it. A national loss. It takes time to recover.

Maggi is not just a fast-to-cook, good-to-eat snack, it is a generic, for wet snack meals. If you have been out in the markets in India, there are very few nooks which don't have a van selling Maggi.

Being Maggi - needs deeper understanding.

After becoming being a regular home snack, it has also moved out of the home a long time ago and has found itself a place in Indian Street Food genre. It is the substratum which enables creative street food artists to use their imagination to make meals using Maggi noodles, but the meal looks nothing like what Maggi Noodles is meant to be. Maggi is relegated to be an excuse, for meal creation. Add Chicken stock and spring onion and eat its soupy form. Or dry with shredded chicken pieces, or Green peas. Take your pick. There are as many ways as there are moods!

Maggi's absence created a void in the after school snack meal space. It was Mommy’s savior.

But why is Maggi more popular than Top Ramen or WaiWai? The main reason I think is not only the marketing effort of Nestle, but the versatility Maggi as a products that can metamorphose into a meal of "my making". It is the food canvas on which I can experiment as I want. It does not tell me that "you have made a meal out of what was already a meal". I can claim that the dish is my creation.

When I was involved in launching TopRamen I always felt that it was a better tasting product than Maggi. But slow and poor marketing of TopRamen never allowed it to surface the way it should have. Or is it that Indians prefer the European noodles and not the Oriental Noodles of Wai Wai and TopRamen, both of which are pre-seasoned noodles think noodles.

All I can say is that let things be. Just enjoy what ever suits you. Maggi adds to the colour of the Indian street food!

But keep it safe, keep it tasty.

How Did I Get Here?

Recently I was speaking to a small group of young Management college graduates. They had only one question to ask.

 "How did you get where you are today?"

They obviously saw the CEO positions I had held in my career as being somewhere to get to, aspirationally, and now as the Co-Founder of GrocerMax.com. If anything to go by, such open-ended questions have END in the focus, and not the MEANS. Nothing wrong in it, the end should fascinate you.

My honest answer was - "I don't know". Life has it, but we don't - we don't have stock answers for every question. For me the positions were just stops in the long road called Life. However, I didn't also reach here by a mistake or meander into one position or another. I tried to find an answer, which I will share with you.

Reason #1 - Build on what you have at hand

Every job needs your sincerity. I have moved from Tea tasting, to tea marketing, Noodle making, seafood selling, Frozen food launches, and retailing. Seemingly disparate lines, but all with food and consumer products. In every job I grew it and developed it, and left it much better than it was when I got it. Innovate to better it. Your life must depend on the work, no matter how small or insignificant. Stay consistent, honest.

Reason #2 - Diversity in education

At School I studied science with biology. In college economics, and in University - Post grad in Econometrics. This is not by design, and I don't advocate it. But after I started working I got myself qualified as a SAP qualified consultant to understand how the ERP world works. I have read widely from philosophy to management, and very deeply.

People become the real subjects once you're out of campus, irrespective of what you pursued in your studies. A diverse academics helps you know your subjects better. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Stay honest at what you do, you'll start loving it.
If you love what you do, you don't have to work a day in your life.