Maggi

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Maggi is an international brand of seasonings, instant soups and noodles, and by 1912 its bouillon cubes, sold in France under the name KUB, reached six million units a month. The brand began in Switzerland in the late 19th century, in a family mill. Today a bottle of dark seasoning sauce or a foil-wrapped cube with the Maggi name sits in kitchens on several continents. Why would a Swiss mill owner care about soup at all? How did a flour for working families grow into a name that, in some countries, simply means seasoning sauce? And what happened to the brand when it met two world wars, a corporate takeover and a public safety scare?

  7172

• 2. A Doctor's Complaint

  ›

  In 1882, a doctor and factory inspector named Fridolin Schuler stood before the Swiss Common Good Society, called the Gemeinnützige Gesellschaft in German, and described how factory workers were eating. Women workers no longer had time to cook for their families. Cold meals or alcohol often replaced warm dinners, and canteen food was cheap but not nutritious enough. Schuler tied these habits to malnutrition, stomach diseases and high infant mortality.

  Schuler's remedy was pulses and legumes, which are rich in protein and easy to digest. He wanted them offered to workers in a form that cooked quickly and cost little. The society approached several firms, and Maggi was among them.

  Julius Maggi, who lived from 1846 to 1912, had taken over his father's mill business in Kemptthal in 1869. He wanted to improve the diets of working-class families through better nutrition and faster preparation, so Schuler's request suited him. Maggi spent two years experimenting with different mechanical and chemical processing methods and different mixtures.

  On the 19th of November 1884, he presented the results to the society's representatives. They approved and signed a contract to recommend Maggi's legumes exclusively for three years. In return, Maggi guaranteed a fixed price and regular product controls for sales in Switzerland.

  The arrangement drew criticism. The society was accused of speaking for a private company. Maggi, meanwhile, struggled to win ground against other soup powder suppliers, even with the society's support.

  The product itself was a flour made from protein-rich legumes, roasted beforehand so that it cooked quickly. Maggi was the first to bring such legume meals to market, and it has sold them since 1884.

  42171

• 3. Growth and Workers

  ›

  In 1885, Maggi put nine industrially produced types of legume flour on sale. That same year the company won a First Class Diploma at the Swiss Culinary Art Exhibition in Zurich.

  A year later, in 1886, the company produced a vegetable protein broken down with acid on an industrial scale for the first time. The result was the new Maggi seasoning. Combined with legume meals, it made a ready-made soup, positioned as a rival to the meat extract invented by Justus von Liebig.

  The first warehouses and branches abroad followed, including Maggi GmbH in Singen, Germany, in 1887. To raise capital for further expansion, the company became a public limited company in 1889, with Julius Maggi as general director. In 1908 the bouillon cube arrived, replacing the earlier bouillon concentrate capsules.

  From 1902, Maggi lived mainly in Paris, and new products brought the company great success in France. By 1912, the Société laitière Maggi was selling 60 million liters of pasteurized milk.

  Inside the factories, Maggi offered benefits that were unusual for the time. These included a canteen, workers' housing, company health insurance, and widow's and old-age pensions. In 1906 the company introduced a rule of no work on Saturdays.

  A strike at the Singen plant in 1907 tested that reputation. Maggi mediated successfully, accused the management of having lost "contact with the workforce", and suggested a "workers' committee", an early form of the works council. In 1912 he signed the first collective agreement in the German food industry.

  Julius Maggi died in 1912. Shortly afterwards the company was converted into a holding company, the Allgemeine MAGGI-Gesellschaft.

  The factory network kept growing. In 1933 Maggi opened a sauce factory in Le Blanc-Mesnil, France. The factory in New Milford, in the USA, followed in 1940 as the eleventh and last to be founded abroad, in the same year that war would put the German branch under heavy pressure.

  456715

• 4. War Years

  ›

  During World War I, Maggi was mistaken for a German company in France and accused of spying. It had to defend itself in the public media and in court to correct that image. In 1919 the French branch was renamed SISA, short for Société industrielle des spécialités alimentaires.

  The second war brought a darker chapter for the German branch, which allowed itself to be coopted into Nazi politics. In 1935 the company had it officially certified that all shareholders, as well as all managing directors, authorized signatories and authorized representatives, were of Aryan descent. Maggi Berlin was awarded the title of "National Socialist Model Company" in 1938, and Maggi Singen received the same title in 1940.

  This servility is ostensibly explained by economic interest. To win orders from state or municipal institutions, Maggi had to have it confirmed again and again that it was an "Aryan company".

  Maggi received an exclusive supply contract for the Wehrmacht, the German armed forces, and even produced a special soup for it. Two-thirds of Maggi production went directly or indirectly to the Wehrmacht during the war years. The company also depended on foreign labor. The number of forced laborers from Eastern Europe varied between 170 at the end of 1943 and 48 in May 1945.

  After the war, confiscation and dismantling threatened the German branch. It was saved only by the intervention of the highest authorities of the Swiss Confederation in Bern, with the support of the Red Cross.

  1213141516

• 5. The Nestlé Years

  ›

  In 1947, following several changes in ownership and corporate structure, Maggi's holding company merged with Nestlé to form Nestlé-Alimentana S.A. That company is known today in its francophone home base as Nestlé S.A. The merger also served to "de-Germanize" the image of Maggi.

  The union was not smooth. Strong animosity grew between the new management and the workforce, and the negotiated wage at Maggi in Singen was questioned. Ludwig Erhard, who knew the then general director Riggenbach well, stated that "its economic policy would falter if Maggi continued to pay such high wages." In 1949, moving the commercial department from Berlin to Frankfurt also triggered great skepticism among the workers' council.

  The merger played out over several years with the help of a specially created company called SOPAD, short for Société de produits alimentaires et diététiques. The two sides had completely different product ranges and distribution mechanisms. These had to be reconciled, but they ultimately proved complementary.

  Production in Germany expanded as well. Lüdinghausen in Münsterland went into operation in 1964, alongside Singen at Hohentwiel. A site in Teutschenthal, near Halle (Saale), opened in 1992.

  In 2002, Nestlé sold the Maggi site in Kemptthal, together with the flavouring production, to Givaudan.

  217212220

• 6. Cubes and Sauces

  ›

  In Germany, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire and Bénin, the Maggi cube is an integral part of local cuisine. So it is in Gambia, Sénégal, Guinea, Nigeria, Ghana, Burkina Faso and Togo. The list continues with Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Mauritania and parts of the Middle East. The cube is a meat substitute product. In Haiti and throughout Latin America, Maggi products, especially bouillon cubes, are widely sold with some repackaging to reflect local terminology.

  In Mexico, German-speaking countries, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland and France, the word Maggi still means Maggi-Würze. This is a dark seasoning sauce in the style of soy sauce, built on hydrolysed vegetable protein. In Spain it is sold as Caldo Maggi, and in Mexico as Jugo Maggi.

  There are nine different formulations of the sauce, and they differ between nations and regions. Older German and Swiss Maggi use acid-hydrolyzed soy protein. Around 2006, the German product was reformulated to use enzyme-hydrolyzed wheat protein, which contains less salt. Its other ingredients are monosodium glutamate, disodium inosinate and food flavouring. European versions have generally similar taste profiles, and all the other versions are wheat-based.

  The Chinese version is very common in North America and adds no MSG. Its flavour is described as more robust than the Swiss original. The Mexican Jugo is darker and thicker. Two Filipino versions exist: Maggi Savor, which resembles the other versions, and Maggi Savor Calamansi, which adds a pronounced citrus tartness.

  In German, Dutch and Danish, the plant lovage has come to be called Maggi herb. The German name is Maggikraut, the Dutch are maggikruid or maggiplant, and the Danish is maggiurt. Lovage smells like the sauce, yet it is not an ingredient in it. Lovage owes its aroma to sotolon, while hydrolyzed vegetable protein contains a related compound, 5-ethyl-sotolon, nicknamed "Maggi lactone".

  2425262730

• 7. Noodles and Mixes

  ›

  Maggi instant noodles are popular in India, Bangladesh, South Africa, Pakistan, Singapore and Malaysia. They are also sold in Papua New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives. Nestlé has a 39% market share in Malaysia. In India it once held 90%, before a nationwide ban by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. The ban was later lifted, but the market share fell to 53%.

  The noodles carry local names. In Malaysia and Singapore, fried noodles made from Maggi noodles are called Maggi goreng. In Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and India the product is branded "Maggi 2 Minute Noodles".

  In India, Maggi Masala noodles carry a green dot, meaning they are formulated for vegetarians. Maggi chicken noodles carry a red triangle, which signals that they are not vegetarian. This special formulation is not available in other countries unless imported from India.

  The Philippines took a different path. Localized versions of the instant noodles were sold there until 2011, when the product group was recalled over suspected Salmonella contamination. The noodles did not return to market, though Nestlé still sells seasoning products there, including the popular Maggi Magic Sarap.

  In 1974, Maggi introduced recipe mixes, also called Fixes, in Germany. Each offers an idea and a recipe for cooking with two or three fresh ingredients and a Maggi mix. They became very popular in Germany and some Western European countries. In the 1990s they reached Eastern Europe, especially Russia and Poland, where the Polish brand Winiary carried them to a big success. Today the range offers more than a hundred recipe ideas across different European and African countries.

  3132343637

• 8. Controversies

  ›

  ne Verlag, a publisher, once placed Maggi soup adverts in the body of various fictional works. One was the German edition of Pyramids by Terry Pratchett. Pratchett switched publishers when he learned of the practice.

  In 2008, Maggi's Indian branch launched two flavors for a new "Cuppa Mania" line, named "Masala Yo" and "Chilli Chow Yo". Moods Hospitality, which owns the "Yo! China" Chinese restaurant chain, sued Nestlé for copyright infringement. Moods Hospitality first won, but Nestlé appealed. In 2010 it was found not to be infringing, because the products were not similar enough for consumers to be confused.

  In May 2015, food safety regulators in Barabanki, a district of Uttar Pradesh, India, reported that samples of Maggi 2 Minute Noodles had up to 17 times the permissible limit of lead. They also found unexpectedly high levels of monosodium glutamate. The finding led to multiple market withdrawals and investigations in India and beyond.

  Nestlé maintained that the MSG levels were naturally occurring, but agreed to remove the "No added MSG" label. It also questioned the reliability of the lead test, since health agencies in Singapore and the US had found no lead issues. The Bombay High Court agreed that the test might be unreliable and ordered a re-test in three separate laboratories. The noodles were found safe in October 2015. Nestlé had also insisted that testing should cover the product as it is eaten, not the Tastemaker flavoring powder alone. The court did not accept that argument.

  In October 2008, Nestlé aired a commercial meant for Bangladeshi television on British TV. The advert claimed that the noodles are rich in protein and calcium and would "help to build strong muscles, bone, and hair". The British Advertising Standards Authority said the advert did not meet the new EU consumer protection legislation, under which advertisers must prove health claims. The product also fell short of British Food Standards Agency thresholds for "rich in protein and calcium".

  Nestlé has faced wider criticism for advertising that ignores marketing rules in developed countries and makes misleading claims in developing ones. As part of its Simply Good initiative, the domestic Maggi range was to move by 2020 toward better-known and healthier ingredients, with less salt.

  3940414244