Dear MEL Topic Readers,
The unsurpassed 125-year-old network that
feeds Mumbai
It seems eating homemade lunch has long been an essential
part of daily work life in Mumbai, India’s business capital. Interestingly, Mumbai
workers seem to prefer eating delivered homemade lunch at their workplaces
rather than taking their lunchboxes with them. The question is how do they get
their homemade lunch at their workplaces?
The Dabbawallas is a lunchbox delivery and
return system that delivers boxed lunch, or Dabba, from homes and restaurants
to people at work. In the late morning, lunchboxes are collected at homes on
time, carried to the district’s collection site, sorted by the destinations,
taken to the respective delivery hubs by trains or bicycles, then distributed
to their customers on time by bike or on foot. Sounds like one of those
food-delivery services, doesn’t it? But they’ve been providing this service
over a century at an affordable price to their customers while providing their
deliverymen with decent pay and welfare, and more importantly pride. Recently,
this food delivery system has been paid great attention by business school, delivery
giants like DHL and online food-delivery companies like Deliveroo and Uber
Eats because of their nearly flawless and on-time delivery practices to serve
nearly 200,000 customers daily.
It seems that dabbawallas are part of the social
infrastructure in Mumbai.
But you may wonder why Mumbai workers aren’t
taking their lunch boxes with them when they leave their homes in the first
place. Is there any cultural, religious, domestic, or environmental reason? This
question is unanswered.
Enjoy reading the article and learn about
this century-old lunch delivery service network in Mumbai.
For your further interest, watch this video;
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