Feeding 2 Million
Kitchens
The Akshaya Patra Foundation operates
67 kitchens across 15 States & 2 Union Territories in India.
The Akshaya Patra Foundation operates its kitchens at ISO standards and has 21 kitchens that are ISO certified. We have adopted advanced technologies such as Six Sigma, Kaizen, blockchain, and IoT to ensure efficiency, safety, and quality control in our kitchens. We follow strict procurement practices based on standards adapted from the Food Safety Standards Act 2006 (FSSA) to ensure that the food we serve is safe and of the highest quality.
Our centralized kitchens are designed with frugal innovation in mind, allowing us to cook between 10,000 to 250,000 meals within 6 hours while prioritizing innovation, efficiency, and safety. We employ 6,000 men and women, with 30% of our workforce being women. Our cooking to consumption time is 4 hours or less, ensuring that the food we serve is fresh and hot.
In locations where the geographical terrain does not support a centralized kitchen model, we have successfully implemented a decentralized model where local women cook up to 5,000 meals daily. This model provides rural women with a sustainable source of income, helping them to break the cycle of poverty. We believe that by empowering women and providing them with a livelihood, we can make a positive impact on the community as a whole.
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Local, fresh vegetables are procured on a daily basis. We follow FIFO and FEFO methods when issuing raw materials for production in order to identify, store and retrieve raw materials in a manner that reduces waste.
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75 quality checks prior to, during and after the cooking process occur to ensure hygiene, quality of service and taste.
Food is at an optimum 65 degrees when it is served to the children. There is a direct correlation between the temperature of the meal and consumption – the hotter the meal, the higher the consumption.
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Cuisine is catered to the local palate, making it more appealing to children. For example, North Indian cuisine is roti-based and South Indian cuisine is rice-based.
Menus are rotated every 30 days.
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We follow Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and are subject to monthly inspections.
Kitchens employ gravity flow mechanisms and fresh fruits & vegetables are processed via high-speed, mechanized cutters on conveyor belts, to minimize the need for human handling.
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We use stainless steel 304 grade vessels that are steam-sterilized to pack the food prior to being transported.
Vehicles use a puffed body to reduce temperature loss and a honeycomb structure to hold vessels upright, to retain freshness.
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Logistic charting for route optimization for safety and on-time delivery.
Our specialized, GPS-equipped vehicles are heat and dust insulated, ensuring food arrives hot and fresh.
Each vehicle successfully delivers over 150,000 meals in 6 hours, daily.
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We receive feedback from schools on a daily basis.
Quality Officers review feedback and initiate appropriate improvement actions.
Innovation
At Akshaya Patra, we believe that a culture of innovation and improvement is essential for our ability to effectively scale production and reach more children. We are constantly looking for ways to improve our processes and systems to make our operations more efficient and sustainable. Our ability to adapt to new technologies and implement them in our kitchens, such as Six Sigma, Kaizen, blockchain and IoT, has helped us to streamline our operations and reach more children with nutritious meals. We are committed to continuously improving our program to ensure that we can reach as many children as possible and make a positive impact on their lives.
At Akshaya Patra, we have invested in advanced technology and custom-designed equipment to prepare and distribute nutritious meals to children in government schools across India.
Our Chapati (roti) Baking system can cook 60,000 chapattis per hour, allowing us to efficiently serve a large number of children.
Our Rice Preparation System uses advanced steam technology to prepare 1,200 liters of rice in just 15 minutes, and our Easy-tilt cauldrons allow cooked rice to be quickly transferred to specially designed insulated containers for distribution.
We also have a Daal/Sambar System that produces sambar in custom cauldrons capable of preparing 1,200 liters of sambar in 15 minutes.
Additionally, our kitchens are equipped with thermite boilers that burn sustainable agri- waste (ground nut shells and grain husks) briquettes to reduce carbon emissions and cooking times. Each briquette boiler saves 788.95 Megatons of carbon from being released into the atmosphere.
We also take care of the environment by triple washing rice and vegetables are triple washed before cooking and re-using the same water for washing delivery vehicles.
All these measures are taken to ensure that we are providing the best quality and nutritious meals to children in need.
Akshaya Patra was founded on the principle of giving and the spirit of service. We have always believed in an ‘open source’ model of innovation, where we share our knowledge and technology freely with other non-profits and organizations, both within India and internationally. We believe that by sharing our successes and lessons learned, we can help other organizations to improve their own programs and ultimately reach more children in need.
We are committed to the dissemination of our best practices and technology, and we provide training and support to organizations looking to replicate our program. Our goal is to empower others to make a positive impact on their communities, and by collaborating and sharing our knowledge, we can have a greater collective impact in the fight against hunger and poverty.
Visit A Kitchen
Are you curious to see firsthand how Akshaya Patra’s mega-kitchens can cook thousands of meals within hours? If so, you’re invited to schedule a visit to one of our kitchens while schools are in session. This is a unique opportunity to see our operations and learn more about our mission to combat hunger and improve education for children in India.
We also offer corporate engagement opportunities for companies looking for ways to involve their employees in our mission. Whether it’s volunteering at one of our kitchens or participating in a team-building event, there are many ways for your company to make a positive impact. To learn more, please contact us at [email protected].
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