The Business Model of Dabbawala

Dabbawala denotes a sophisticated but also traditional food delivery system, most commonly present in Mumbai. A dabbawala collects hot food in so-called tiffin boxes from the residences of office employees or commercial food suppliers in the morning and delivers it to the offices by using bicycles and the city's extensive train network. In the afternoon, the empty boxes are collected and returned back to the residences where they had been picked originally. The whole procedure takes about 8 to 9 hours and an estimated 260,000 transactions are performed daily, six days a week, 51 weeks a year. Check out the short documentary on Youtube.