It was Julius Maggi's meeting with Dr Fridolin Schuler, who was concerned about the health problems frequently caused by workers' undernourishment and malnutrition, that led him to start looking for a way of providing them with cheap, easy-to-eat proteins in 1882. He began by inventing legume-based flours, which were improved and marketed from 1886 in the form of ready-to-use soups such as this one. Their plain, even dull, packaging was seen as partly responsible for their relative success, encouraging Maggi to innovate further with the packaging for its famous Aroma (see AL8321), invented the same year. 
A white label bearing the words ‘for display’ on the underside of the packaging indicates that it was intended for use in shop windows to promote Maggi products.