Robin Uthappa's iTiffin to feed 800 school students daily

BANGALORE: Robin Uthappa is having an amazing season, and not just in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) where he's the highest run-getter. His one-year-old Bangalore-based startup, iTiffin, has just won a significant order from a major school that opens up a whole new pitch for the firm to explore.
iTiffin, a venture that delivers healthy meals — till now to mostly bachelors — will from the first week of June offer custom-made lunchboxes to schoolchildren in an educational institution that is part of a national school chain located in North Bangalore.The school will receive 800 lunchboxes each day at a cost of Rs 100 per box.
The lunchbox comprises of three separate boxes, each delivered during school breaks, containing a total of six food items that have a combined calorific value between 500 Kcal and 2,600 Kcal. The children who will be served are between 4 years and 17 years of age. The menu ranges from staples like upma and idli to pasta, rice and sabzi and multi-grain muffins.
"We have segregated children based on their age into eight baskets and each basket has different levels of protein, calcium, iron, and fat depending on the nutritional requirements of a child in that particular age group," said Tapan Kumar Das, CEO, iTiffin.
Das was previously CFO of e-commerce poster boy Flipkart, a company he left a couple of years ago to start a nutrition venture, called Qua Nutrition, along with celebrity sports nutritionist Ryan Fernando. The idea of iTiffin took roots when Uthappa decided to spread the cheer of healthy living through a balanced diet, after Fernando helped the cricketer shed 20 kilos in about 12 months. Uthappa has invested Rs 1.5 crore in the venture.
Das said that kids spend almost 75% of their day in school (without accounting for the night) and aren't eating nutritious meals they ought to. Even food that are prepared at home and sent aren't nutritious, he said.
iTiffin promises to deliver each of the three lunchbox components at three different break periods, to ensure freshness. Das said the pricing of the lunchbox was arrived after research showed that parents give their children Rs 100 per day to spend. This of course is in more upmarket schools.
The company will pilot the project for a year before adding more schools. At present, iTiffin delivers 600 meals each day. About 70% of the orders are to people in offices and the rest are home deliveries. A typical iTiffin meal box includes brown rice, rotis, dal, salad, a vegetarian or non-vegetarian dish at an average cost of Rs 2,000 per month.
The company has sales of Rs 12 lakh a month. The target is to hit Rs 1 crore per month by the next fiscal year. Educational institutions are expected to contribute around 40% of this.