Source | LinkedIn | Patrick Leddin, Ph.D.
In Mumbai, India, a city of 17 million people, fast food has a unique meaning.
Every day, about 5,000 dabbawalas, or “lunchbox people,” deliver nearly a quarter of a million home-cooked lunches around this vast, tumultuous city—at high speed and without error!
Because people who work in the city enjoy a home-cooked lunch, thousands of white-capped dabbawalas pick up the lunches in characteristic stacked lunchboxes, called “dabbas,” from nearly a quarter of a million homes in the suburbs between 9 and 10 in the morning. The mission: to get this specific lunch by lunchtime to a specific person downtown who is hungry for a hot meal. And it arrives every day—exactly at 12:30 pm.
The dabbawalas’ mission is simply to serve their customers accurately and on time, every time. They also have a unique value proposition: Unlike fast food chains, they bring a fresh, home-cooked lunch right to you, no matter where you are.
