Food delivery major Swiggy has partnered with various commercial kitchens, NGOs and state governments to provide daily meals to thousands of underprivileged, daily wagers and stranded migrant labourers who have limited access to nutritious food during the 21-day lockdown.
The ‘Hope, Not Hunger’ initiative was launched last week to support the Delhi Government’s program to feed the needy. Swiggy helped organize the preparation and distribution of nutritious meals twice a day across relief camps in Delhi with the support of partners such as Compass Kitchens, Lite Bite Foods and SmartQ.
The relief effort was then scaled to Mumbai and is now present in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Gurgaon, Chennai and Kolkata, supplying over 75,000 meals daily. I-Pac and other corporate entities have also come forward to source and expand the food supply to additional cities through their network of NGOs. While feeding the hungry, this initiative has also helped set things in motion for these kitchens and restaurant staff during these difficult times.
Having served over 2,50,000 meals so far, Swiggy is in the process of crowdsourcing funds from corporates and individuals in order to scale the initiative to other parts of the country. The goal is to serve 5,00,000 meals daily. Each meal served for lunch and dinner includes adequate portions of rice, dal and vegetables to ensure the nutritional needs of the individual are met.
“These are challenging times for the service industry including the food sector. There are restaurants that run the very real risk of shutting down permanently due to lack of business. This, in turn, has the potential to destroy the livelihoods of thousands of kitchen workers, cooks and support staff. Considering the nature of our business, we are in a unique place to contribute by making something as essential as food available to the needy while providing business opportunities for our restaurant and kitchen partners, so that we can together make it through to the other end of this crisis,” Sriharsha Majety, CEO, Swiggy, said.
Thousands of Swiggy customers have already contributed to the initiative through the Swiggy app. Swiggy has also set up a platform on Milaap for individual donations and can be accessed via www.hopenothunger.com. The donation is completely voluntary and is eligible for deduction under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961 for Indian donors. A donation of as little as Rs 250 can provide a day’s meals to a family of four.