Well the history of this brand traces back to the 19th century when industrial revolution in Switzerland created factory jobs for women, who were therefore left with very little time to prepare meals. Due to this growing problem Swiss Public Welfare Society asked a miller named Julius Maggi to create a vegetable food product that would be quick to prepare and easy to digest. Julius, the son of an Italian immigrant came up with a formula to bring added taste to meals in 1863. Soon after he was commissioned by the Swiss Public Welfare Society, he came up with two instant pea soups & a bean soup- the first launch of Maggi brand of instant foods in 1882-83.Towards the end of the century, Maggi company was producing not just powdered soups, but bouillon cubes, sauces and other flavorings.
However in India(the largest consumer of Maggi noodles in the world!) it was launched in 1980’s by Nestle group of companies. Maggie had merged with Nestle(This company too has a very interesting history which I will discuss in some other review!) family in 1947.
When launched it had to face a stiff competition from the ready to eat snack segments like biscuits, wafers etc. Also it had other competitor the so called ’home made’ snacks which are till today considered healthy and hygienic. Hence to capture the market it was positioned as a hygienic home made snack, a smart move. But still this didn’t work, as it was targeted towards the wrong target group, the working women. Although the product was developed for this particular purpose.
After conducting an extensive research, the firm found that the children were the biggest consumers of Maggi noodles. Quickly a strategy was developed to capture the kids segment with various tools of sales promotion like pencils, fun books, maggi clubs which worked wonders for it. No doubt the ads of maggi have shown a hungry kid saying ’’Mummy bhookh lagi hai’’ to which his mom replies ’’Bas do minute!’’ and soon