Godrej Appliances and Dabbawalas fight hunger with a 'kool' innovation

Sample this: 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.

To help fight this hunger, Mumbai's 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 working round the clock to pull off this non-profit initiative in addition to their routine work.

Godrej Appliances recently decided to join hands with the Mumbai Dabbawala Association to extend support to the Rotibank initiative as a part of a new campaign, #UnHungryIndia.

Godrej Appliances is supporting this initiative through customised cycles fitted with Chotukool - a 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 them to efficiently run their Rotibank initiative and scale it up further.

Commenting on the association, Kamal Nandi, Business head and EVP, Godrej Appliances, says, “Mumbai Dabbawalas are doing tremendous work in feeding the underprivileged. The tradition of giving back to society has been deeply rooted in the culture of Godrej. Godrej is a brand that has been synonymous with trust, reliability and quality. It is a brand with a conscience which understands its responsibility towards customers, 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."

Swati Rathi, head-marketing, Godrej Appliances, adds, “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 in-house. 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 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!"