Stainless steel lunch box
A meal in India usually consists of several small portions, following the logic of a thali lunch. Vegetables, dhal, rice, curries, pickles and sweets, usually prepared by the housewives. This way their families always have home-cooked food to enjoy. Indians believe that home cooking is a great way to eat healthy and cheap food, bringing divine satisfaction.
No wonder then that such lunch boxes, also called tiffins, are widely used in India. A short journey by public transport is enough to see them in the hands of many commuters. They come in all shapes and sizes, but are traditionally round, with three or four stackable compartments. They close with an airtight lid and side clip to prevent spillage and a handle for convenient carrying.
This stainless steel version of the classic “tiffin lunchbox” has two compartments that are unlocked with a small lock at the top of the handle. An ideal option for storing and transporting fresh food without the risks and environmental effects of plastic containers.
Lunchbox culture in India
Today, many workers in the country leave home every day for the long commute to their offices. Trains are often uncomfortable and crowded. This, coupled with an increasingly hectic lifestyle, means that carrying your own food is no easy task.
Fortunately, there is a complex and efficient delivery system that regularly delivers hot lunches packed in dhabbas (lunch boxes) to office workers in many cities. It is the famous Dabbawala or Tiffin Wallah (lunch box management), which originated over a century ago as many British workers did not like the local Indian food at work.
The lunch boxes are collected mid-morning from homes, colour-coded and transported to the station, where they are picked up by tiffin-wallahs. Their job is to deliver each box to its corresponding workplace and return the empty container home before the end of the working day. The food, as well as arriving hot, does not spill thanks to a clever distribution of the food: rice on top, curry in the middle and vegetables at the base of the lunch box.
Today in Mumbai, the 5,000 tiffin-wallahs deliver 200,000 tiffin boxes full of home-cooked food every day. Incredibly, according to a recent survey, only one error has been found in every 16,000,000 deliveries. This means that the system has recorded a performance rating of 99.99%!
