the Dabbawalas

by Umika Pidaparthy

Somewhere between Spring Break and Finals, I always find myself plagued by an intense craving for home food. The DUC for all its variety (vegetarians like myself will beg to differ) makes anyone, especially freshmen, grateful for what their family cooks.

For most Indians this craving is particularly acute. We take our Indian food very seriously. A little too much or bit too little of any one thing can spoil everything. So imagine if you lived in Mumbai and had to travel to downtown to work every day. Come lunchtime you might find yourself in a fix. There’s always that nearby fast-food restaurant, but it’s a little pricey for your kind of salary and, well, it’s just not food from home. You don’t want to carry your lunch with you and end up with a cold meal. So what do you do?

You use the world-renowned dabbawalas of course!


For those of you in the dark, the dabbawalas are Mumbai’s finest, organized labor-intensive food delivery operation. These men (and now women) clothed in their white cotton kurtas and Gandhi caps have become recognized figures around the city. “Dabba” is a term for a lunch boxes and “wala” implies someone who performs a particular task. These heroes in white pick up food from your home and deliver it to your office. Everyday.

The system was actually introduced during the British rule around 125 years ago for British officers whose delicate palates could not handle the spicy local cuisine. It lived on thanks to the efforts of Raghunath Megde and Gangaram Talekar, the president and secretary respectively of the now famous Mumbai Tiffin Box Supplier's Association. But what has really grabbed the attention of the business world is their successful management style. And you don’t have to be in the B-school to understand it. It’s that simple.

There are three levels of management; the governing body, the team leaders or supervisors who manage 20-25 dabbawalas and the dabbawalas themselves. Each team operates within a specific area of the city. Every day, the dabbawalas pick up lunch boxes from houses and carry them to the railway station using wooden crates, bicycles or by hand. From there, they hand-sort the lunch boxes based on a color code and load them onto trains to Dadar station in Mumbai, the transit point. They then transport them to different areas of the city and deliver the meals to their final destinations at around 12:30pm. The entire process goes into reverse at 2:00pm. A single tiffin box can change hands around 3-4 times in a day.

The current association is 5000-strong and shuttles around 400,000 tiffins across Mumbai every day. Forbes gave them a Sigma Six certification, which means their error rate is one in 6 million deliveries. That’s 99.99 percent accuracy. It’s no wonder they have been invited to give lectures at the top management schools in India. They were even visited by Prince Charles of Wales and invited to his wedding to Camilla Bowles.

Even though most of the carriers are illiterate, they are able to manage quick and efficient delivery because of a special color code system that tells them the origin and destination of the meal. Because of the nature of the work, people from small towns and villages have been able to find employment and provide for their families. Whenever a replacement is needed, the managers approach the hometowns of these dabbawalas to ensure the opportunity continues. Dabbawalas currently earn around Rs5000 ($107) per month and the service can cost between Rs250-Rs500 ($6) per month, depending on the location of the customer.

The dabbawalas have also introduced a service where customers can make orders by text messages or online at mydabbawala.com. On the website, one will notice that the company has embraced the age of social networking and convergence by signing up for Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. They also have slideshows of presentations, online applications, and even a products page where you can order special tiffins or mugs with the dabbawala inscription. Looking to do research on the lives of dabbawalas? They have a page for that too.

You would think that with the recent outcropping of multinational food chains that the dabbawalas might be losing their business. This is most definitely not the case. The New York Times reported in 2007 that the demand for dabbawalas will grow from 5 to 10%. This could be due to the existing customer loyalty, the economic crisis and the counterculture movement of returning to traditional food consumption. Megde, the president, was even invited to a conference in Italy on sustainability and organic food. Clearly, eating home-cooked meals is gaining popularity as a healthier and more environmentally-sustainable alternative to eating out, making the dabbawalas one of the leaders in this movement.

On their website, the dabbawalas note the top 10 reasons for choosing their service. Here are my favorite three:

“1. Homemade food is best for health because health is wealth.
2. Home made food is cheaper.
3. Do you not love your mother or wife and like to eat food made by her?”

Can’t argue with that.