Snapdeal sale: 60k Maggi kits sell out in 5 minutes

Maggi instant noodles stocks with retailers in select markets were sold out within hours of their relaunch earlier this week. A flash sale on Thursday on Snapdeal went out of stock in five minutes, selling 60,000 Maggi WelcomeKits to as many customers.

The rush to relaunch Maggi has strained Nestle India's employees working on the project and the pressure has now shifted to its distributors. Many had to work extra hours during Diwali to place Maggi on shop shelves.

Snapdeal, which partnered Nestle to sell Maggi online, had to request buyers to wait till November 16. The majority of buyers who had registered for the Maggi WelcomeKit, a special box containing a dozen 70 gm noodle packets, a sticker, a postcard and a calendar, could not buy them when sale opened on Thursday.

Last year, Coke Zero, a sugar-free version of Coca-Cola, registered sales of 100,000 cans in a fortnight on Amazon. "Maggi's sale on Thursday is unprecedented for any food product sold online in India," an expert said. "We witnessed a phenomenal response to this sale from customers across the country. We are happy to make this Diwali special for them," said Tony Navin, senior vice-president, partnerships and strategic initiatives, Snapdeal.

According to market sources, retailers in Bengaluru and Kolkata ran out of Maggi stocks a few hours after the instant noodles was reintroduced in the market on Monday after five months. "I am attending at least 30-40 customers every day who want to buy Maggi," said Raju Gupta, a grocer who earlier used to sell 100-150 packets of the instant noodles a day. He received 400 packets of Maggi noodles on Monday night, sold out by the next afternoon.

The urgency to reach Maggi to stores has led to cancelled leave and extra hours for distributors. Retailers are complaining about supply. If we supply to one outlet, the others in the neighbourhood are up in arms," said a distributor for Nestle here who did not wish to be named.

"Sales have been good. Maggi is generic to the instant noodles category. There was pent-up demand, which is showing in sales. But the full extent will be visible in a week when inventory builds up," said Devendra Chawla, group president, food and consumer goods, Future Group, which runs retail chains like Big Bazaar and Food Bazaar. "It is too early to review, however, the initial response has been extremely good," said a spokesperson for retail chain Star Bazaar.

Short supplies of the instant noodles are likely to persist because two of five Maggi manufacturing plants are yet to resume operations. "Plants in Pantnagar and Tahliwal are our major manufacturing units. We are ramping up production in the other plants in phases," said Suresh Narayanan, chairman and managing director, Nestle India.