Tiffin?

Tiffin is an Anglo-Indian word for a type of meal (normally lunch) and is made up of rice, dal, vegetable curry, chapatis, and occasionally meat dishes.

 

Dabba?

Dabba means "box" in Hindi. It is a multi-tiered metal container that is used all over India for transporting home cooked meals. TIFFIN TIME dabbas are exclusively in stainless steel certified suitable for food contact.

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Dabbawalas?

In India, the lunch time delivery  has been going for a more than a century and runs on human energy. The meal is made at home the same morning and delivered straight to your place of work.

The delivery system employs dabbawalas which literally translates as "the one carrying a box". They are dressed in the type of white kurta-type uniform worn by Gandhi and often ride bicycles.

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Every day, some 200,000 dabbas are transported by around 5,000 dabbawalas.

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The dabbawalas collect the tiffins from the people who prepare them around 10 a.m. (often a wife or mother, sometimes restaurants). Up to 40 tiffins travel together in long rectangular boxes carried on the head or on carts or even suspended from  luggage racks and handlebars of bicycles, to the nearest station. They are labelled using a system of symbols and colours indicating the place the tiffin was collected from, the station it will be sent to, and the owner's final address, all hand painted. The tiffins then travel on the city's rail network, and at the other end, the local dabbawalas collect them for the final leg of the trip, lunchtime delivery, which is never late.

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The dabbas are not only delivered, but also returned. After lunch, the whole system is reversed, and luckily a bit lighter, as an average crate weighs around 45 kg.

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To learn more, watch the film "Lunch Box" by Indian director Ritesh Batra it shows us in detail the operation of the delivery network of "Bombay lunch boxes", the dabbawalas, plus it's a real feel-good film!