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Komal Jani from Watford town, Hertfordshire – 24 km north of London – spotted the need for a tiffin service catered to South Asians during her pregnancy. Without any family around her, she struggled to cook healthy meals for herself.
“I knew then that if I came into the tiffin service industry, I could provide home-cooked meals, covering all different pulses and vegetables during the week,” Jani, who started her tiffin company Ambikaa in 2020, tells The Quint.
Over the past two decades, an influx of South Asian professionals to the UK has ignited a demand for tiffin services to those yearning for convenience, nourishment, or even just a comforting connection to their roots.
Having to quit her job gave Jani the push to own her tiffin company during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jani notes that the emphasis on healthy eating has triggered a soaring demand for home-cooked meal providers.
“I would say people are getting more conscious of what they’re eating. All kinds of people use tiffins, but especially working parents with younger kids. Also, the elderly who can’t eat overly spicy food and prefer mild and balanced meals.”
Since the 1950s, suburban neighbourhoods of West London – like Southall, Hounslow, Hayes and Harlington – have been home to significant South Asian communities with a majority hailing from Punjab. Recent immigrants, amongst these students and other skilled professionals and labourers, have contributed to the ever-growing demand for traditional Punjabi food. To meet these demands, Punjabi Chulha, a restaurant in Hayes, began its tiffin service operations five months ago.
Rajvinder Kaur, the manager, explains that they cater to a large clientele of people who do not know how to cook.
Indeed, it was an early lack of cooking skills that prompted Shrut Silikari, a first-year student at Imperial College London, who's originally from Mumbai, to use a tiffin service.
"I had never been to the UK or Europe and had never cooked fully for myself, so when I came here, I decided to avail a tiffin service. That allowed me to settle into university life. It's been six months, and I can cook for myself now. But I still get a medium tiffin package, which has one box of dal, three chapatis and vegetable curry, six times a week. It's much cheaper to get tiffin than to get takeaway."
Silikari uses Tiffin Planet, founded by Harmohan Pahuja in 2007. It is one of the larger providers catering to people all over the UK.
"We deliver to students, old-age pensioners, and customers who live alone or don't have the time to cook. There are even Indians who use it as a stopgap for a few days while they are visiting the UK. It's the home-cooked Punjabi food that people prefer," says Pahuja.
But the impact of tiffin services extends far beyond satisfying hunger pangs.
For many female entrepreneurs, particularly those from underprivileged backgrounds, these services help attain financial stability, especially in a society wherein 42 percent of Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi women aged between 16 and 64 are unemployed.
Sangeeta Sengupta, based in East London, was working as an employment coordinator for the National Health Service (NHS) when she identified a group of local women who wanted to care for people but did not meet the skill and qualification requirements for a role in the NHS.
Discovering that a majority of these women enjoyed cooking, and that there was a dearth of healthy food options in the surrounding areas for the NHS staff, Sengupta decided to start TiffinWalli.
Whilst they initially planned to supply food to NHS staff, TiffinWalli soon branched out, providing food to the elderly and people with low incomes who had lost their jobs. Earlier, they provided food in tiffin boxes, but switched to microwaveable biodegradable boxes during the pandemic as washing reusable boxes and having to make extra trips to collect them were proving to be an issue.
“We are going back to the tiffin boxes because a lot of young people are asking for home food now because they’re either working from home or they don’t have the time to cook. We’re looking at getting an electric van due to sustainability – our women don’t want to use bikes!”
Sengupta emphasises that TiffinWalli’s goal of empowering local women has been at the center of its operations. “Most of the women can’t work full-time hours as they have young children, so this gives them a flexible working option and regular income. Some are even happy to work ad hoc with us.”
“She was alone as her parents couldn’t come and I asked her to join the training – even if just as an excuse to socialise. We asked her if she could cook, and she made this yoghurt. It blew us all away and we decided to make it an in-house product. Over the last two years, we’ve worked to bring it to the mainstream market and have launched it.”
Jani, like Sengupta, presents another example of the flexibility and stability that a career providing tiffin services can offer women in the South Asian community.
The success of tiffin services is also a testament to their ability to transcend cultural boundaries and appeal to a diverse clientele. While initially catering to the South Asian diaspora, these services have begun to garner a loyal following among non-South Asians who appreciate the convenience, authenticity, and flavours they offer.
Poland-born Katarzyna Kowalczyk, who now lives in East London, uses a tiffin service specialising in pure vegetarian South Indian tiffins.
(The author is a freelance writer and Odissi dancer based in London. She is an alumnus of SOAS University of London where she studied South Asian Area Studies, focusing on the politics of culture in India and the diaspora.)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)
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