Ashok Ram and his team very kindly let me accompany them, one balmy March morning, so that I could understand how this completely ecologically-sound concept works, managing to feed 200 000 hungry city dwellers a day, by men who are mostly illiterate and uneducated. It is a race against the clock which begins around 10 in the morning where the men start their rounds going from house to house collecting the Tiffin's eventually amassing them at a sorting point where other member’s of the team separate them out according to the different zones of the city. This is done by the colored markings on the top of each tin. Once all the Tiffin's are in their respective batches they are transferred to wooden hand-carts which hold up to 50 lunch boxes. The race against the clock is on and with lunch time fast approaching the Tiffin-Wallahs join the rest of the ‘varied’ modes of transport you find on Indian roads dodging busses, rickshaws, the ubiquitous black and yellow taxis and of course the sacred holy cows to deliver the lovingly prepared delights to hungry stomachs awaiting them.

India thrives on chaos and anarchy as seen by the untrained eye but in fact the tiffin system like so many other unique and resourceful ideas is a carefully developed and sophisticated system that has evolved through economic necessity. The whole delivery system uses a tiny amount of energy due to the use of bicycle and trains. There is so much to learn from so called ‘developing countries’ many of which put us to shame when looking at carbon waste.

Here at the Thali café we owe the success of our Take away scheme to the efficient and hardworking men like Ashok Ram and his team in giving us the inspiration to helping Bristol become the first city to pioneer a bold and environmentally sound food revolution.