In 2018, Friday nights in East London for neighbours-turned-friends Renee Williams and Anshu Ahuja revolved around a takeaway and a glass of wine. With a three and six-year-old between them, rushing around after children all week meant meal planning usually went out the window. “Conversations were usually centred around how we could leave our jobs to do something that catered to our lifestyle of working mothers better,” says Renee, “not an easy feat by any means.”
Mumbai-born Anshu was working as a TV Producer for heavy-weight programmes such as First Dates and One Born Every Minute on Channel 4 and New Zealand native Renee was an Event Producer for the likes of Caprice Holdings and Soho House. Despite their impressive CVs, their love of food and the community which comes hand-in-hand with it took over and lit the spark. Thus, DabbaDrop was born.
DabbaDrop has had over 3000 people sign up for the service so far and they have delivered over 112,000 meals so far in our 4 years as a business.
The idea of DabbaDrop
Delivering to postcodes across East London so far, the sustainable South Asian-inspired takeaway brand has saved a total of 18,360kg of greenhouse gasses to date (the same amount as flying from London to Amsterdam 314 times). Anshu describes their business’ success as a slow burn instead of an overnight success. “It was an idea I’d had for a while”, she says, “and it started very organically with me cooking South Asian food out of my own kitchen for about 20 people or so on our street. One of which was Renee who thought it was a brilliant idea and conversations very quickly turned into how we can make this bigger and better.”
DabbaDrop operates on a subscription basis where customers can choose to have their food delivered once a week or once a fortnight, aiming to take away the admin for the user. “Too much time is spent scrolling through UberEats or Deliveroo wondering what to eat that night”, says Renee, “we really wanted to bring back the excitement surrounding takeaways and give customers a takeaway to look forward to rather than one that’s chosen out of convenience.” Operating on a rotating menu with flavour tours across South Asia from Sri Lanka to Kerala, customers receive a curry delivered via bicycle in a Dabba tin - a stacked stainless steel box born out of Bombay in the 1900s which is reusable and inspiration for the brand’s name.
How is it different from regular Asian tiffin services?
Sustainability separates DabbaDrop from the rest (as well as their freshly cooked and vibrant menu). Staggeringly, DabbaDrop is the UK’s first closed-loop takeaway brand and as well as the greenhouse gases they have avoided, they have also saved 142,580 plastic containers from going to landfill and saved 2,500kg of food from being wasted.
“It makes sense for food businesses to be making changes in order to be more environmentally friendly, “says Anshu, “we’re plant-based at DabbaDrop as the meat industry is a huge contributor to climate change and food waste is an enormous problem in the UK. We throw away about 9.5 million tonnes of food each year and Renee and I felt strongly that DabbaDrop would not contribute to this embarrassing number. That’s the whole reason why we’re subscription based as it asks each customer how many people are being cooked for so portions are appropriate sizes. No need for a huge takeaway with food piled up knowing you won’t eat it all.”
There is a whole team behind DabbaDrop - from Operation Managers to Head chefs, cyclists to customer service teams - delivering good quality, healthy food, sustainability requires meticulous planning and attention to detail at all times. We take our hats off to the original Dabbawalas, from Mumbai, who have done this for decades, without the help of tech!
Amid the vegetable crisis, are ingredients for Asians in the UK found easily?
Yes! We love Seelans in East Ham for all things South Indian and Sri Lankan and Taj stores on Brick lane for everything North Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi. We also work closely with Murugan from Lakshmi Brand for all our South Asian supplies.
