History of food delivery

Food delivery service offers the most vital assistance to the millions of people especially those in the modern age. People these days are often busy with their projects or has a hectic timetable which leaves them very little time to grab a bite. Essentially food delivery services are an important system for those that want help in ensuring they have a well cooked, prepared meals delivered to their door. But the question is where does the service originated from? And how does it help people on a day to day basis?

We will look to India first, I am sure us Malaysians are familiar with the tiffin box, up till today is still being used by residents as a way of food catering for the family. 

A dabbawala (Marathi) also spelled as dabbawalla  or dabbawallah; literary means "box person", is a person in India, most commonly found in the city of Mumbai, who is employed in a unique service industry whose primary business is collecting freshly cooked food in lunch boxes from the residences of the office workers. Then delivers the food to their respective workplaces and returning the empty boxes back to the customer's residence by using various modes of transport. You got to respect them for their hard work. It is not really not easy to recognize which ones belong to which customer. The concept of the dabbawala originated when India was under British rule. Many British who came to the colony didn't like the local cuisines, so a service was set up to bring lunch to these people at their workplace straight from their home. 

Nowadays, the dabbalawas primary customers are Indian businesspersons, increasingly affluent families employ them instead for lunch delivery to their school-aged children. Even though the service provided might include cooking, it primarily consists of only delivery either home-made or in that latter case, food ordering from a restaurant.

It really reminds me a lot of my childhood days when my grandma would cook a large quantity of food just to cater the needs of residents, the food would be placed in a three tier metal container called a tiffin. Then a man on the motor bike will take this containers and sent it to the resident that orders the food and they would do this every day with one off day. As I walk out in the streets looking for an economy rice stall, I would see the tiffin canisters line up waiting their turn to get the fill of food in them. Those were the days when food was delivered to the house, when your parents aren't home to cook lunch for you after school. Now thats what you call old school Malaysian food delivery service especially in Penang where there are Baba Nyonya culture which influence much of the dishes and the delivery service. 

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Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabbawala