John O Agwunobi is the Global CEO of Herbalife Nutrition
India has shown great "resilience and courage" coming out of the pandemic, says John O Agwunobi, Global CEO of Herbalife Nutrition told NDTV in an interview during his ongoing visit to India.
"Coming out of the pandemic India showed resilience and courage and the economy has been inspiring. We are present in many of the big cities across India but increasingly we are beginning to see much of our business grow in the second and third tier cities of your beautiful nation," said Mr Agwunobi.
Herbalife Nutrition's 'Nutrition for Zero Hunger', a global initiative focused on providing nutritious food, aid, and nutrition education to communities, is running this programme in Jharkhand.
According to the company, an estimated number of people to be positively impacted through this programme is about 5 lakh in two districts - Gumla and West Singhbhum.
Herbalife says their efforts in the field of science-backed nutrition and individual empowerment through entrepreneurship opportunities, aims to create sustainably and holistically growing communities and hopefully leave a positive impact.
Agwunobi told NDTV, "We have been around for 42 years and we are in 95 countries. In India, we actually have a long history of providing healthy nutrition through our products to millions of customers across India. So although it is trending coming out of the pandemic and because of the digital revolution, its also a business that has a solid foundation. This is not going to be a flash in the pan. We expect continued double-digit growth in our business in India out into the future."
"I think what is really driving the increased growth that we have seen in recent years related to the fact that people are becoming much more aware of the importance of health and good quality healthy nutrition, especially the power of protein which is one of our core products. Its also I think is driven by the fact that a lot of young people are becoming more engaged in living physically active, healthy nutrition lives," he added.
Herbalife last week announced that it was suspending all operations in all 62 sales centers in Russia and wouldn't be ship products to the country which has invaded Ukraine.
It also announced that the company would donate profits from Russia to organizations supporting Ukrainian refugees.
Speaking to NDTV, on the development, Mr Agwunobi said, "As a global CEO and as a global citizen, we watch the violence, and we are horrified by it. I am not going to opine on the politics or who is right or who is wrong, but I know this. There are many people living in fear, many people living in pain and our job as a company is to support peace. And our hope is that peace comes as soon as possible."