Godrej Appliances provides cooling solution to help dabbawalas store food for longer hours
India CSR Network
MUMBAI: India is home to 194.6 million undernourished people and one third of the world’s chronically malnourished children. Approximately 38.7 percent of children under the age of 5 are malnourished in India. (source: http://www.wfp.org/stories/10-fact-about-food-and-nutrition-india)
To help fight hunger, Mumbai’s acclaimed Dabbawalas have been running the ‘Rotibank’ initiative since 2015 to prevent wastage of food and feed the underprivileged. As part of the initiative, leftover food from households, occasions like birthday parties and weddings are collected by the dabbawalas to be distributed to the under-privileged living on the streets. Nearly 400 dabbawalas are dedicatedly working round the clock to pull off this non-profit initiative in addition to their routine work.
Godrej Appliances, one of the leading brands in India’s home appliances segment has joined hands with the Mumbai Dabbawala Association to extend its support to their Rotibank initiative as a part of #UnHungryIndia campaign.
Godrej Appliances is supporting this initiative through customised cycles fitted with Chotukool – a one-of-its-kind personal food and beverage cooler. Godrej ChotuKool is compact, light weight and can retain cooling for up to 3-4 hours even without electricity and remains compatible with portable inverters, car chargers and even external batteries, which makes it a perfect solution to the food storage problem being faced by the dabbawalas.
These customised cycles will help dabbawalas to store food on the go and also preserve it overnight thereby enabling and empowering them to efficiently run this unique Rotibank initiative and scale it up further.
Commenting on the occasion, Kamal Nandi, Business Head & EVP, Godrej Appliances, said, “Mumbai Dabbawalas are doing tremendous work in feeding the underpriviledged. The tradition of giving back to society has been deeply rooted in the culture of Godrej. Godrej as a brand has been synonymous with trust, reliability and quality. It is a brand with a conscience which understands its responsibility towards its customers, its stakeholders and the larger society and delivers it through everything it does. This is our small contribution towards a noble cause.”
“Food is such a basic essential which we take for granted. As a company that deals in appliances and promises brighter living, we are glad to be a part of such social initiatives which can contribute towards reducing hunger amongst the larger underprivileged sections of society.”, he added.
Subhash Talekar, General Secretary and Spokesperson, Mumbai Dabbawala Association, said, “The Rotibank initiative is aimed at providing food to the underprivileged people living on the streets of Mumbai who often find it difficult to afford even two square meals a day.”
“We were facing a major challenge in delivering the food before it became stale. Additionally, we were not able to carry large quantities of food due to storage and space related constraints. Hence, we are grateful to Godrej Appliances for their support through Chotukool.” he said.
“It would make it easier for us to store food for longer and also reach far-flung places. We now have the assurance that the food we are delivering is healthy.”, he further added.
Swati Rathi, Head-Marketing, Godrej Appliances, said, “Rotibank is a great initiative for a very noble cause. When the dabbawala association came to us, we took it as yet another opportunity to make a real difference, this time, using an innovation we developed inhouse! We also know that the dabbawallas favourite mode of transport is the cycle. So we asked ourselves if, as the leading cooling solutions company in India, we could come up with a better solution, which could reduce food wastage, without disturbing their current process.”
“We realised we had the perfect solution to this in the form of Godrej ChotuKool. The dabbawalas can use it to store the excess food. The product can be mounted on a customised cycle and be carried around to collect and distribute the food. There is nothing more reassuring and satisfying for responsible marketers of a proud Indian brand, than the feeling to have been able to contribute to the larger society and to see happy smiles at the end of it all!”, she said.
