Food for Life Global affiliate, Krishna Temple Food Relief Foundation has set the standard for quality nutritious lunches for school children. The organization continues to expand its popular lunch service all throughout India. The fact that the non-profit can maintain such a high standard of quality while serving over 250,000 meals daily is astonishing to say the least.
THE SETTING
Hunger and illiteracy are two of India’s most widespread and pressing problems. Although public schooling is offered free of cost to children aged 6–14, poverty bars the underprivileged from taking advantage. Typically hailing from slums and tribal areas, such children must either go hungry at school or resort to begging and child labor.
In 2004, the Government of Maharashtra appointed Midday Meal to provide nutritional support for primary school children. The initiative aims to break the hunger cycle by providing impoverished families the incentive to keep their children in school—and off the streets. Midday Meal is a non-profit strategic program run for the benefit of all hungry students without consideration of caste, religion, or gender. For most children, it is their only complete meal of the day.
THE IMPACT
Numerous studies have demonstrated that there is a direct correlation between these lunch programs and increased student enrollment, attendance, attention spans, and exam scores. Other benefits include reductions in skin infection, anemia, and marked improvements in body mass index.
STATE OF THE ART PROCESS
Midday Meal’s four ISO-certified, custom-built kitchens mass-produce meals which are hygienic, nutritious, tasty, and cost-effective. To feed one student costs only ten cents per day, or $20.35 per school year.
Midday Meal’s logistical infrastructure is a marvel of engineering ingenuity. Its unique solutions include:
- automated conveyor belt
- steam-jacketed cauldrons (660 lb. capacity)
- tamper-proof stainless steel containers
- computerized recipes
- flight-kitchen grade ventilation and drainage
- rack-fitted delivery vehicles
4 kitchens + 55 cooks + 69 vans + 1225 schools + 4500 miles = 250,000 smiles
“Meals for 24,000 children can be prepared, in two shifts per day, by only five persons. The kitchen was so spotlessly clean that I wondered if it was yet to become operational.”
— Sudheendra Kulkarni
(The Economic Times, Mumbai)
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Food For Life Global’s primary mission is to bring about peace and prosperity in the world through the liberal distribution of pure plant-based meals prepared with loving intention. |
CONTACT
Director
Krishna Food Relief Foundation
7 K. M. Munshi Marg, Chowpatty, Mumbai 400007
Mobile 98210 55520. Tel 2366 5500
rkd@middaymeal.com
