Indians strict food preference sustains a unique service market-Dabbawala

I read an interesting blog post of Seth Godin, an entrepreneur and a prolific business-book author. All Marketers are Liars and Unleashing the idea virus (ebook) are notable bestsellers from his list. Seth in his post, the Dabbawalla's secret, writes about the phenomenon of Dabbawallas in Mumbai who deliver thousands of homemade freshly prepared lunches to the customer's from their family. Seth singles out a marketing key, the trust, and existence of trust leads to responsibility which eventually result in the minimal error rate of one in six million for wrong delivery in dabbawala service. About 5000 dabbawallas serve lunches to around 200,000 people everyday in Mumbai. Prince Charles on his visit to India showed high interest in meeting and hearing about the system from Dabbawalas.

Watch the history behind and dabbawallas in action in the following short clip, in which writer & TV personality Anthony Bourdain auditions actresses. (narration on dabbawala starts from 2 min 10 sec onwards)