What is Dabbawala?
A dabbawala (one who carries the box), sometimes spelled dabbawalla , tiffinwalla , tiffinwalla or dabbawallah, is a person in the Indian city of Mumbai whose job is to carry and deliver freshly made food from home in lunch boxes to office workers. Tiffin is an old-fashioned English word for a lunch, and sometimes for the box it is carried in. Dabbawalas are sometimes called tiffin-wallas.
Though the work sounds simple, it is actually a highly specialized trade that is over a century old and which has become integral to Mumbai’s culture.
The Dabbawala originated when a person started the lunch delivery service with about 40 men in 1890 during the time India was ruled by British. Nowadays, Indian businessmen are the main customers for the dabbawalas, and the service includes delivery of food prepared at the customer’s home to customer’s office.
Dabbawala – Detailed Introduction
Dabbawala is a 135+ years old system delivering tiffin boxes throughout Mumbai. These tiffin boxes are filled with home-made food prepared by someone’s mother, sister, wife or other family members. The Dabbawala collects these tiffin boxes in the morning and delivers to customers offices by the lunch time by using a complex supply chain system comprising walking, bicycles, hand carts and Mumbai’s punctual local train system. After the customer has taken the lunch, the empty tiffin boxes are returned back to customer residences. The customers have to avail Dabbawala services because in Mumbai, the offices are located far away from the residential localities and the people have to start their journey very early in the morning and they cannot carry the tiffin boxes with them because the local trains are very crowded and lunch may not be ready by the time they start their long journey to their offices. Some people may have specific dietary requirements because of certain health challenges due to which they cannot eat outside food from hotels and restaurants and the Dabbawala is the only solution for them to bring home-made healthy food to their offices during the lunch time.
The Dabbawala system started in year 1890 when the Britisher’s were still ruling India. That time, a Parsi Banker first started availing this service because the outside food from restaurants and hotels was not good for his health and budget. Slowly, this developed into the modern-day Dabbawala system comprising about 5000 Dabbawalas delivering 200,000 tiffin boxes every day in the nook and corner of Mumbai city. It is hard to believe and accept that mostly illiterate Dabbawalas ensure the error-free delivery of tiffin boxes beyond six-sigma quality standards without using any modern technology such as IT, barcode, GPS tracking, RFID tags, QR codes and AI.
By year 2000, the Dabbawala system was 110 years old and it still used to operate very efficiently and cost-effectively for the customers, however, no one recognized the greatness and significance of the Dabbawala system. This changed, when in November, 2003; UK’s King Charles III, then Prince Charles, met the Dabbawalas on the street of the Mumbai and recognized and acknowledged their consistent hard work. The meeting of the Prince Charles was the turning point in the history of the Dabbawalas because it made headlines on the newspapers of leading global newspapers and the whole world including India recognized, appreciated and discovered the greatness and eminence of the Dabbawala system. After the visit of Prince Charles, leading international figures such as Sir Richards Branson, Queen Maxima of The Netherlands, etc. met the Dabbawalas and appreciated and valued their timeless management practices.
However, the Dabbawalas are not at all swayed or influenced by the limelight and stardom and they continue to do every day what they have been doing for centuries, that is, delivering hot home-made lunch boxes for their customers!