Ghar Ka Khana: Homesick Indians are Reaching Out to Dabba Services

With more and more Indian professionals and students in the UK, tiffin services are gradually spicing up lunch time.

Rikul Patel, the owner of Jalaram Food, with his staff. (Photo Courtesy: Rikul Patel)

Mayur Dipak Giri from Gujarat never misses a home-cooked Gujarati thali. The London-based real estate professional has been living in the city for the past four years.

Giri pays £4 for his tiffin everyday, and has no qualms of spending the money in the world’s most expensive city as long as he gets healthy, freshly home-cooked food delivered at his desk.

“The lunch packed in a microwaveable container contains four chapatis, vegetable curry, rice and dal,” he says with a sense of satiation.

With the increasing number of professionals and students from India and other Asian nations travelling to the UK, the concept of tiffin services is gradually spicing up lunch time at a minimum cost of £3.50 to £4.

"Tired of Surviving on Salt-Sprinkled Bread”

At the crack of dawn, Rikul Patel can be found busy in his kitchen. The owner of Jalaram Food in London, Patel is not only the head chef of the tiffin service run by Jalaram Food but is also one of the delivery men. The tiffin boxes comprising a portion of sabji, five chapatis and a side-dish – anything from a plate of salad or sweets, or patra (a Gujarati savoury made with Arbi leaves rolled with gram flour and spice powders) – are made ready for ‘door-step delivery’ every day for 120 customers.

Patel, a former regulatory and compliance officer says:

Out of these 120 customers, 20 are office-goers and the remaining are students and elderly people.

500 to 600 rotis, six kgs each of rice and dal and 25 to 30 kgs of vegetables are cooked in his kitchen every day. (Photo Courtesy: Rikul Patel)

It was Patel’s passion for cooking and the existence of a gap in such business that prompted Patel – who has a Master’s Degree in Organic Chemistry – to take the plunge into the food industry in 2014.

500 to 600 rotis, six kgs each of rice and dal and 25 to 30 kgs of vegetables are cooked in his kitchen every day.

If Patel’s passion for cooking led him to start a tiffin service, Har Mohan Pahuja and his friend were fuelled by the desire to eat home cooked Indian food in a foreign land.

We were fed up of eating bread, butter and soup. And, there were days when we used to survive only on salt-sprinkled bread.

Har Mohan Pahuja, Director, Tiffin Planet Limited

Mohan, who came from Mumbai in 2005 to pursue a course in Call Centre Operation and Management, was ‘homesick’ for ghar ka khaana for a considerable amount of time.

We looked around and surfed the internet for days, but couldn’t find anything helpful. That was when we came up with the idea of starting a service that <i>we</i> would provide – catering to professionals and students alike.

As one of the partners returned to India, Mohan’s wife Harmet joined him to manage the business – currently running it out of their house in London. Starting with just five customers, Tiffin Planet today serves at least 70 to 90 customers per day.

The tiffin boxes are either delivered by food delivery services or by their staff.

A Relief For Students Away From Home

Out of our 120 customers, 20 are office-goers and the remaining are students and elderly people. (Photo Courtesy: Rikul Patel)

A regular customer of Tiffin Planet, IT professional Vipul Sharma – who lives in Croydon near London – gets his food delivered to his doorstep every day.

I feel privileged to have home-cooked food waiting for me every evening when I return from work. It’s easy to see from the website that the prices are attractive, and also to establish from other testimonials that the food is homely, freshly cooked and wholesome.

Arjun Toteja, an undergraduate student in Cardiff University, orders food through apps like Ubereats or Hungry House whenever he craves Indian food. The latter is usually picked up from one of the many restaurants in the city which serve the desi cuisine.

Tiffin services from Asian restaurants in Cardiff are really popular among the students here. You’ll see delivery boys and girls on bikes arriving at our doorsteps every second hour!

The demand for tiffin services in the country has spurred Arjun’s mother, Poornima Toteja to start her own service. The House of Ethnic Foods in Manchester was thus born in September last year.

I can understand the plight of young professionals and students who live in rented or shared flats. The availability of freshly home-cooked food will do wonders for those who’ve left the warmth of their homes to study abroad. However, I am currently looking at the feasibility of the business and negotiating for orders starting from a minimum of 15-20 students at a time.

Neha Jain, who used to serve home-cooked food to students in Manchester, plans to start a pilot project of Indian fast-food chains in Birmingham after September this year. The project will primarily target students and professionals “who have less time to cook”. Jain, who is pursuing a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Aston University, Birmingham, explains:

Students don’t get a lot of home cooked food in UK’s B-towns. Indian students themselves order Indian food only about once or twice a week. Therefore, I am looking into a food chain where we can modify our Indian foods to make them suitable for all nationalities and thus, widen our market.

(Anjana Parikh works with the healthcare sector in the UK. She's also a freelance writer based in Manchester. Before relocating to the UK in 2013, she worked as a full-time journalist with some of India's leading dailies like The Times of India, Deccan Herald and The Sunday Guardian. She also worked as the News Editor for a leading British Asian weekly Asian Lite. Apart from reading and writing, she also loves rambling and singing.)