DabbaDrop

DabbaDrop, London’s first plastic-free, waste-free and emissions-free takeaway. It’s meat-free, too.

“I’d come home worn out on a Friday — takeaway night — and I wanted something vegetarian,” Ahuja recalls. “There wasn’t very much choice and then whatever there was arrived in plastic containers, delivered on a noisy scooter that woke up the kids. I was like, ‘There must be a better way.’”

Inspired by Mumbai’s dabbawalas, the bicycle lunch delivery system that’s fed the city for 130 years, Ahuja decided to cook her family’s recipes from across southern Asia, pack them in reusable metal tiffins and deliver them by bike to those nearby in Hackney. “I thought, I’ll text a few friends in the neighbourhood. I just said, ‘This is my idea, who’s in?’” A handful were; she cooked for six that week, 10 the next and 25 the week after that. Now, about 18 months later, DabbaDrop feeds 300 weekly across Hackney, Leyton and Walthamstow, though it’s set for a rapid expansion from tomorrow as the Friday-night deliveries expand to include Thursdays and Saturdays, and move into Islington and Tower Hamlets.