Akshaya Patra: Delivering Food To School Children: Case 619-0012-1

Akshaya Patra: Delivering Food to School
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619-0012-1
AKSHAYA PATRA: Delivering Food to School Children
Introduction:
The Akshaya Patra foundation (APF) is a not-for-profit organization with its
headquarters in Bangalore, India. The vision of Akshay Patra is “No Child in India
should be deprived of Education because of Hunger” and it is progressing with a mission
“To feed 5 million children by 2020”. 1In June 2000, the Akshaya Patra foundation
started the mid-day meal program in Bangalore, Karnataka. In early stage of Akshay
Patra, it was serving food to 1500 children across five government schools in Bangalore.
Soon, the Akshaya Patra scaled up its services to 30,000 children and by 2003,
government also started supporting APF, seeing its popularity. After receiving support
from the government, it expanded to various parts of India. August 2003, it reached to
Vrindavan and in July 2004 launched itself in Hubli-Dharwad with the support of
Infosys. 2After successful growth in Urban India, Akshay Patra realized that to achieve

its mission, it needs to focus on rural India. So with this thought in mind, in August 2005
a branch was launched in Baran, eastern Rajasthan village. Neither the government nor
Akshay Patra alone was able to feed these localities, but together, this was made
possible. Now this successful Public-Private relationship is creating platform for
eliminating hunger of classroom and that helps in increasing school enrollments as well
as attendance.
HISTORY OF AKSHAY PATRA
The inspiring resolve of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada sowed the seeds of The
Akshaya Patra Foundation. With the vision: “No child in India shall be deprived of
education because of hunger”, Akshaya Patra started the Mid-Day Meal Programme in
June 2000 by serving mid-day meals to 1,500 children across five government schools in
Bengaluru, Karnataka. A humble beginning, yet, the initial days of implementing the
programme was not a smooth sail. Soon came the helping hands of Mohandas Pai, who
took the initiative of donating the first vehicle to transport food to the schools; and
Abhay Jain, who promised to bring in more donors to contribute for the further
expansion of the programme.
3
In partnership with the Government of India and various State Governments, as well as
philanthropic donors; the organization is running the world’s largest Mid-Day Meal
Programme. Built on a Public-Private Partnership model, Akshaya Patra combines good
management, innovative technology, and smart engineering to deliver nutritious and
hygienic school lunch on every school day.
1
"Akshaya Patra Foundation - Wikipedia." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akshaya_Patra_Foundation.
Accessed 25 Sep. 2018.
2
"About Us | Akshaya Pātra USA." https://www.foodforeducation.org/about-us. Accessed 25 Sep. 2018.
3
Success story of Akashay Patra https://www.yosuccess.com/success-stories/akshaya-patra-foundation/ Sept 26
,2018
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Since 2000, Akshaya Patra has been concerting all its efforts towards providing fresh and
nutritious meals to children on every single school day. Akshaya Patra is continuously
leveraging technology to multiply our reach. The state-of-the-art kitchens have become a
subject of study and have attracted curious visitors around the world.
Their partnership with the Government of India and various State Governments, along
with the persistent support from corporates, individual donors, and well-wishers have
helped Akshaya Patra to grow from serving just 1,500 children in 5 schools in 2000 to
serving 1.7 million children.
Today, Akshaya Patra Foundation (APF) is the world’s largest (not-for-profit run) Mid-
Day Meal Programme serving wholesome food every school day to over 1.7 million
children from 14,314 schools across 12 states in India. (exhibit 1)
AKSHAYA PATRA'S SUPPLY CHAIN

4
APF is operational across 38 locations in 12 states of India, and it follows the

centralized Kitchen format in 36 locations and de-centralized Kitchen format in 2
locations. In the centralized model, the supply chain is broadly divided into three stages,
the raw material suppliers, the APF kitchens and finally the consumption points (i.e.
schools).
The raw materials consist of both perishable products (such as vegetables, milk, and
fruits) and non-persihable products such as pluses, rice and wheat. The supply chain
strategy adopted at APF is cost conscious strategy (i.e. lean strategy) because it runs on
Government support and provide the standard mid-day meal which is cooked in large
quantities in mega kitchen. Therefore, the raw materials suppliers are mostly local
vendors which function in the nearby localities of the centralized kitchen in order to
reduce transportation cost and purchase fresh and quality raw material at low cost. The
standard meal as specified by Government is cooked in the mega-kitchens, then meals
are packed in steel containers and finally meals are transported through specially
designed delivery vans to the schools in the vicinity of the kitchen. Sometimes the meals
are even sent to a distance of about 200 km from the kitchen (exhibit 2). Generally, the
truck moves with full truck load and serves to more one schools many times.
Decentralized kitchens are set up in locations where geographical terrain and bad road
connectivity make it difficult to set up a large infrastructure. The members of these
groups are trained in Akshaya Patra’s kitchen processes and operations module. These
decentralized kitchens are also monitored by Akshaya Patra representatives to ensure that
safe, nutritious food is being provided to children in their mid-day meal.
APF has decentralized kitchens in Baran, Rajasthan reaching out to 155 schools and in
Nayagarh, Odisha reaching out to 342 schools. Akshaya Patra hired and trained women
from Self-Help Groups to cook the nutritious food in kitchens across the district and feed
4
"Project Report on Akshayapatra | Recruitment | Employment - Scribd."
https://www.scribd.com/doc/119919592/Project-Report-on-Akshayapatra. Accessed 25 Sep. 2018.
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the children. 5While the decentralized kitchens prepare mid-day meals for school
children, they also help in building Self-Help Groups with sustainable income and social
standing.
DISTRIBUTION NETWORK
In Centralized model, all the operations related to the preparation of mid-day meals is
carried in the one central location and then mid-day meals are transported to various
consumption points (schools) as per the requirements. In the process, the average cost of
preparing mid-day meals is reduced due to centralized cooking and the outbound
transportation cost (i.e. kitchen to consumption points) is minimized due to aggregation
and full truck load operations. In decentralized kitchen model, the mid-day meals are
cooked for each school to reduce the high transportation cost due to inherent location of
the schools (i.e. consumption points). For every kitchen is operated by a Self-Owned

Fleet of about 35 delivery vans of varying capacities, having 3 tier racks for the three
types of containers based on different sizes. A quality check is run of the prepared meals
once again before loading them in the vans. Loading is carried out in a LIFO pattern (6).
Akshaya Patra first provided food to school children through a centralized kitchen in
Bangalore, a bustling urban center. Using a hub-and-spoke model, they cooked mass
quantities of food, segrgated into different lots as per requirements and distributed to
various consumption points such as schools in the surrounding slum and village areas.
However, a centralized model proved inefficient when Akshaya Patra expanded services
to the rural districts. This is because of the dispersed geography of the villages in the
rural districts. Therefore, Akshaya Patra designed a decentralized model in which small
kitchens were built to serve the local school children in each village (7).
Through this two-pronged distribution strategy, Akshaya Patra was able to design
services to fit the contrasting needs of the urban and rural regions. Scientific
management and advanced available technology such as logistic charting for route
optimization and GPRS to track the delivery vehicles for safety and on-time delivery are
gradually being adopted and implemented in the distribution network.
The packing supervisor determined the amount of food to go to each school based on
figures calculated the evening before. Every morning starting at 2:45 am, twenty-two
customized vehicles delivers the prepared meals to 145,000 children in 486 schools.12
Each vehicle has a driver, two loading/unloading workers and a security guard. The
security guard holds the key to the food storage unit of the truck and ensures that the
correct amount of food reaches to each school. He gets a signature from the designated
person at the school site for actual receipt of the meals and collects the verified quantities
needed for the next day. The meal is generally unloaded and brought to the appropriate
area of the school where it is served to the students by teachers or other school personnel.
5
"Decentralised Kitchens of The Akshaya Patra Foundation." https://www.akshayapatra.org/decentralised-
kitchens. Accessed 25 Sep. 2018.
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Each truck first completes its delivery route for delivering the food and collects the
empty vessels on its way back to the Bangalore kitchen. Each security guard has a
mobile phone, that connects him with the central kitchen and is useful to communicate
the various activities in transit including unexpected situations arose such as additional
food requirements in a school, a vehicle break-down, or a traffic delay. If there is a
significant amount of food remaining after all of the school deliveries, the security guard
contacts the head office for permission to stop in the slum areas to distribute the excess
food.13 Each day, the amount of time it takes to move from one school to the next is
tracked, and deviations are documented. 6To consistently maintain the quality of the
meal, APF takes feedbacks from schools on a daily basis while delivering the meal. The
Quality Officers in the kitchens review the feedback and initiate or trigger appropriate
corrective or improvement actions to improve the quality and delivery of food. APF also
circulate ‘Do’s and Don’ts’ pamphlets to all schools on a regular basis for creating
awareness on food safety and hygiene while serving the mid-day meals.

CENTRALIZED DISTRIBUTION MODEL
The centralized kitchen model has the benefits of scale and this also results in lowest
cost. Akshaya Patra has achieved much success through the centralized model and has
recently invested in a new centralized state-of-the-art kitchen in Hubli. However, they

still face many challenges but not limited to distribution issues, maintaining continuous
improvement, and creation of a flexible manufacturing system.. Worker retention in
large kitchens is low in some cities as workers trained in their kitchens are often
recruited to work in high-end hotels where they usually receive a better wage. AFP's
plans for the construction of new kitchens, APF need a replicable model, allowing room
for improvement. 7Akshaya Patra also considers future capacity needs and is wondered if
they should build each kitchen for the current capacity allotted, or with room for
increased capacity, on the assumption of additional funding in the future.
DECENTRALIZED DISTRIBUTION MODEL

The rural areas are best targeted through the decentralized model, but Akshaya Patra
questioned whether they can achieve the necessary scale to make a difference in these
areas. Employee recruitment, particularly of trusted supervisors who will not fall prey to
the corruption schemes that are so prevalent in India, is a further limiting factor.
Furthermore, localized training of village women is extremely labor intensive.
DELIVERY AND POST DELIVERY PROCESS

8
Audit & Review mechanisms play a key role in monitoring the key processes & systems
and their performance. So, APF has institutionalized Good Manufacturing Process
6
"Akshaya Patra-Managing Big Data with ERP | - Akshaya Patra Blog." 13 Feb. 2015,
https://blog.akshayapatra.org/managing-big-data-erp/. Accessed 25 Sep. 2018.
7
"Harvard Business School Case Study Report - Akshaya Patra." https://www.akshayapatra.org/Harvard-
Business-School-Case-Study. Accessed 27 Sep. 2018.
8
"Akshaya Patra has Gone to Great Lengths to Ensure Food Safety in its ...." 3 Apr. 2015,
https://blog.akshayapatra.org/going-above-and-beyond-for-food-safety/. Accessed 25 Sep. 2018.
4
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(GMP) Monthly Audits, Surprise Audits on Food Safety & Quality, to name a few.
Quality Metrics Performance (or Quality Performance Metrics) is reviewed on a monthly
basis. Detailed Customer Satisfaction Surveys are carried out by the Quality Staff at
periodic intervals apart from the day-to-day feedback which is taken during the delivery
of food. In certified kitchens, ISO 22000 Internal Audits are made twice a year by
qualified Internal Auditors led by Quality Managers. In addition to this, APF's
Certification body does the surveillance audits twice a year. The data from all the
respective audits are reviewed, and appropriate improvement or corrective actions are
taken on a continous basis. All actions are further monitored till their effective
implementation.
Recognizing the need for midday meal programs in other regions, Akshaya Patra has
expanded services to northern India. The original Bangalore kitchen was located in
southern India, where the diet was primarily rice-based. In contrast, the local diet in the
northern region was predominantly wheat-based. Akshaya Patra devised a new menu,

with the daily meal consisting typically of Rotis or Chapatis, Daal or Curry and
vegetable rice/sweet porridge. In Jaipur for example, where large-scale unemployment
among women was a concern, the kitchen chose to hire 90 women from local villages
and only automate some of their operations.
DELIVERY VEHICLES
TAPF owned a fleet of specially designed vehicles procured from Mahindra & Mahindra
Ltd. for maintaining the temperature of the food while carrying it to their respective
destinations (exhibit 3). These vehicles could accommodate 72 containers (24 big and 48
medium). They have an inbuilt rack system for storing the containers which prevented
spillage even on bumpy roads. 12Vehicles have thermocol insulation which can preserve
the temperature of the food for up to five hours. The vehicles have a door in the rear
which is closed during transit to prevent contamination. On the other hand, the hired
vehicles, being for a temporary period, did not have the above, additional features. The
absence of rack system resulted in a lesser capacity of containers (32 big and 23
medium) and a higher possibility of spillage. Lack of insulation and an open rear make
the food susceptible to external temperature and contamination. TAPF used four
categories of vehicles across the country, based on their capacity. (Refer to Exhibits 11a
and 11b for the capacity of each vehicle category and the cost structure of the hired
vehicles across various locations).
INVENTORY MANAGEMENT
Inventory at the storehouse is mainly comprised of food grains, provisions, and vitamin
supplements. Inventories received as government grants are determined at the lower end
of the market price or regulated price for accounting purposes and a purchase requisition
was raised by the store department when the stocks reached their reorder level. (Refer to
Exhibit 5 for the minimum stock, maximum stock, reorder level, and shelf life of some
of the items). In case the lead time of the items is exceeded the normal delivery time, and
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the stocks hit their minimum level, emergency purchases are made to continue operations
smoothly9. Accordingly, the purchasing department collected samples and quotations
from different suppliers. The samples are checked by the quality control executives and
the supervisor-in-charge of operations.
Fresh vegetables are procured on a daily basis. After procurement, sorting of vegetables
is carried out to retain the best quality. All the vegetables are cleaned with potable water
and are sanitized before the cutting process. Cold storage is used to store ready-to-cook
cut vegetables to retain freshness. Rice is procured from the Food Corporation of India
(FCI). Before the cooking process, the rice is machine-cleaned and is washed thoroughly.
All the kitchens follow the FIFO (First In First Out) and FEFO (First Expiry First Out)
methods while issuing the raw material for cooking. The kitchens are properly able to
identify, store and retrieve the raw materials in an appropriate manner due to adoption of
these methods for issuing raw materials.
10
Akshaya Patra’s ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) application allows it to gather

and integrate data across different modules like Purchasing, Inventory Management,
Production and Distribution, Personnel Management, Banking and more onto one
platform. Implemented since 2011, the ERP system is a standardized data gathering
process used in every Akshaya Patra branch across the country. This software helps the
organization account for all the data being received such as the total procurement of dal
(pulses) from the different kitchens where Akshaya Patra has a presence, the complete
details of the beneficiary schools being served through the program, the number of meals
being served in a day and much more. There is a reasonable level of automation in the
preparation of meals. The necessary equipment and spare parts are procured from
different vendors as per specific requirements. To maintain hygiene at the storehouse, the
Pest Control of India as contracted to carry out fly management operations every day,
rodent check is carried out three times in a month, and fumigation once a year.
PRE-PROCESSING AND COOKING

Akshaya Patra cooks the traditional food of each region, being sensitive to the needs of
the local palate. From the southern Indian Bangalore kitchen, students are served a
customary hot meal of rice, sambhar (a south Indian native soup with lentils, vegetables
and spices, sprouts, ghee (clarified butter), and curds. The kitchen was set in motion
around 9:30 pm with the pre-cooking activities such as washing and cutting of
vegetables. The masala-making process started at 4:30 am followed by cooking at 5:00
am.
At 2:30 am, steam generator boilers are turned on.11 For the next six hours, the kitchen is
alive with motion preparing 145,000 meals for the day. Every day, 95 batches of rice are
9
"Akshaya Patra, Gandhinagar: Supply Chain Challenges." 8 Apr. 2013,
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0256090920130408. Accessed 25 Sep. 2018.
10
"Automated Mega Kitchens of The Akshaya Patra Foundation." https://www.akshayapatra.org/our-
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cooked. Starting at 2:45 a.m., nine 100 kg-capacity and four 50 kg-capacity steam-
powered rice boilers takek 20 minutes to cook 100 kilograms of rice. The entire
operation is designed to ensure minimal human contact with the rice and thus minimal
chance for contamination. (Exhibit 4)
11
The total production and cook-to-consume times varies between 5-6 hours and 6-7
hours respectively. Being a centralized kitchen, mechanization is facilitated for reduced
human handling, thereby ensuring quality. Grains, pulses, and spices are washed, sorted
and stored. The vegetables are washed, sorted, peeled, and cut using specifically
designed vegetable-cutting machines and then stored. The cutting is carried out in
different patterns either by a machine or manually. It is preferred to cut the vegetables
into small shapes so that the children could consume them easily. The condiments are
sorted, cleaned, ground, mixed, and stored. The oil is stored in cans and used either
directly for certain items or poured into tanks for usage on tap or as a spray.12 The rice-
cleaning machine has a capacity of five tones per hour. It is divided into three sections.

The first section is separated metal adulterants such as nails, iron filings, etc. The second
section-filtered out dust, moth, chaff, husk, and broken rice grains while the third
removes stones from the rice. Steam was the medium of cooking. It is generated using
boilers and then passed into the cauldrons for cooking. There are separate cauldrons for
cooking rice or rice-based items and for dal or dal-based items. Rice cauldrons cancook
100 kg of rice in 20 minutes for 1,000 children. Each dal cauldron could prepare 1,200
liters of dal in under two hours for 6,000 children. Water is added to flour in vessels to
make the dough mechanically. The dough is fed manually into the machine whose first
step is to flatten the dough through rollers. The flattened dough is cut into round shapes
using the rotary cutting die. The rotis are further moved into a burner for cooking them
on both the sides. They are then sprayed with oil through a mesh, to keep them soft. It
was observed that, in general, children did not consume more than two rotis. (Some did
not even consume more than one roti).This resulted in the insufficient wheat
intake.13Even two rotis, which totaled 40 grams, does not meet the norm for minimum
wheat consumption set at 50 grams per day. To improve the situation, a new item
sukhadi, a popular sweet made from fortified atta, was introduced in the menu.
The sambhar contains a mix of vegetables, typically including carrots, potatoes,

tomatoes, cabbage, beans, or eggplant. Variety ensured quality as well as the economy is
ensured, while also offering children different tastes each day. The sambhar took two
hours to cook in 1,200-liter containers, enough to feed 6,000 students from each vessel.
The entire cooking and packing process is completed by 7:15 a.m., and by 10:00 a.m. the
kitchen is fully cleaned with preparations for the next day already underway.
11
"Harvard Business School Case Study Report - Akshaya Patra." https://www.akshayapatra.org/Harvard-
Business-School-Case-Study. Accessed 27 Sep. 2018.
12
"Automated Mega Kitchens of The Akshaya Patra Foundation." https://www.akshayapatra.org/our-
13
"Akshaya Patra's Mega Kitchen | The Cooking Process - YouTube." 29 Jun. 2016,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USBh588MNbk. Accessed 25 Sep. 2018.
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PACKING
The prepared food is packed into stainless steel containers with tight-fitting lids that
prevents pilferage and leakages, and also retains heat. The containers are in three
different sizes - small, medium, and big, with the capacity to accommodate food (other
than rotis) for about 50, 100, and 200 beneficiaries respectively. The requirement for
each school is determined in units of containers based on the average beneficiaries which
is moderated based on the actual requirements for the next day. However, even this is led
to supply mismatches since per capita consumption of each school which is varied and
affected by various factors such as heavy rains, festivals, local events etc.
In general, it is observed that the supply food is more than required at the schools
(consumption points). For packing rotis, medium and big containers with capacity of
about 600 and 1,200 rotis respectively are generally used. This is because of an
insufficient number of small containers, whose usage is preferred for dal, sabji, or rice.
After the rotis are produced, they are packed school-wise (and thus not necessarily to its

full capacity), using a weighing machine. Since each roti is weighed 25 grams, the
medium and big containers will weigh about 15 kg and 30 kg respectively.
Each container is labeled after packing. The label is comprised the name of the school
and route number, and, it is the number in the case of rotis. The packed containers are
then placed on a platform route-wise next to the vehicle allotted for that route. When all
the containers for a route are packed, a food-packing report is prepared, giving the
number of containers and the packing time for each route.
INTRODUCING TECHNOLOGY
Akshaya Patra has adopted and implemented automation and mechanization as much as
possible. For example, after the vegetables for the sambhar are sorted and cleaned, they
are moved from the holding vessels to an automatic cutting machine. These machines
were imported from Germany. The machine is able to cut 40 kilograms of potatoes in 60
seconds and can vary both the shape and the size depending on the need. According to
Ganesh Thapa, assistant supervisor and one of the kitchen workers, “Initially we had
more work because it was all manual cooking. Then automation came to the kitchen.
Compared to the early days, it is a relief to have mechanized cooking14.” A new kitchen
at Hubli went a step further. Opened in May 2006, it could serve 200,000 children18. To
increase cost-efficiency and decrease the labor needed, this multi-story kitchen was
designed using basic concepts of gravity flow.14 Today, vegetables are cleaned, sorted,
and cut on the top floor, and dropped through holes in the floor into the cooking vessels
below. From the cooking vessels, rice and vegetables are moved through funnels into
large containers. This system requires less overall labor and ensures that health and
safety standards are easier to maintain. Apart from this, Akshaya Patra ingenious uses
14
https://www.akshayapatra.org/news/leveraging-technology-to-feed-Indias-hungry-children Oct16, 2018
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Blagdon chocolate pump to pump the ‘Ganji’ (excess water from cooking rice) out of the
rice cauldrons, where it is then recycled for use in bio-culture or vehicle washing water.
The hallmark of Akshaya Patra's program is its centralized kitchen facilities, which have
been designed and engineered to optimize quality, minimize cost, time and labor and
effective waste management system. These fully automated kitchens can prepare
185,000 meals in less than five hours by utilizing gravity flow mechanisms to minimize
human handling (manual touch points) of food, mechanized high-speed cutting of
vegetables and conveyor belts for easy transportation. Large stainless steel cauldrons
with easy-tilt mechanisms prepare 1,200 liters of lentils in two hours, and a specially
designed roti-making machine cooks up 40,000 rotis (flat whole wheat bread) in one
hour. Steam is used as a source of cooking, which accelerates the cooking process,
retains nutrients, and is cost-effective and clean. To date, six of the Akshaya Patra
kitchens have received FSMS (Food safety management system) ISO 22000:2005
certification -- a first of its kind achievement for an NGO.

Accentureand Akshaya Patra is also collaborated on an innovative project that is used
disruptive technologies to exponentially increase the number of meals served to children
in schools in India that are run and aided by the government. The “Million Meals”
project revolutionized Akshaya Patra’s supply chain and operations, resulting in
improved food quality and expanded service reach.

Rooted in a vision to eliminate child hunger, the “Million Meals” project demonstrates
how disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things
(IoT) and block chain can help address significant challenges in mass meal production
and delivery while minimizing the total supply chain cost and satisfying the service level
requirements level requirements. Accenture Labs, the research and development arm of
Accenture, executed the project throughout six months in Akshaya Patra’s Bengaluru
kitchen. An analysis of the project indicated that a potential to improve efficiency by 20
percent, which could boost the number of meals served by millions. Akshaya Patra’s
goal is to continue to optimize and streamline the supply chain and program.
Technologies were applied to four critical processes: collecting school feedback, tracking
food delivery, measuring the quantity of food and supplies to be purchased, and
monitoring meal production.
As a result of these process enhancements, Akshaya Patra has improved their audit
capabilities, attendance recording, invoice processing and payment, order and data
collection, and food preparation operations allowing for expanded production
capabilities and establishing a blueprint for operating other kitchens. An example of
Akshaya Patra’s transformation is its move from a manual collection of feedback from
children and schools to a more efficient technology-based solution. Using block chain
and sensor-enabled devices, the technical team gathered feedback digitally, leveraging
AI technologies to predict the next day’s meal requirements. The team tracks the
timeliness of food delivered to each school involved in the initiative and collects the data
using mobile devices and an Accenture-built system. The team also used IoT sensors to
monitor and sequence the cooking process to ensure optimum energy consumption and
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consistent food quality. This system not only aids in tracking kitchen performance but
also provids accurate, real-time data to identify trends, make better-informed decisions
and save valuable time and effort.
QUALITY MEASURES
APF has implemented a set of stringent regulations for controlling the standards of food.
These are dealt with production, storage, handling, and distribution ensuring that the
food is safe to consume and free of any kind of biological toxins. Mechanization of the
facility have helped them in achieving the highest standards of hygiene by minimizing
human handling of food. The parameters defined by them for food safety and hygiene
were:15
Good Hygiene Practices

Good Hygiene Practices includes both personal hygiene and equipment hygiene. These
are discussed below:

• Personal Hygiene: This is achieved using safety gloves, shoe covers, foot wears,
aprons, hand sanitizers; and proper hand washing

• Equipment Hygiene: This is achieved washing of equipment with soap solution;

and sterilization of cauldron, and distribution containers
Good Cooking Practices

Some of the good cooking practices at APF are mentioned below:
• Adhering to the Prerequisite Programme for food safety and following the
production process stated in the Standard Operating Process. (The programme
and process had been evolved and codified by TAPF to be followed by all
kitchens).
• Cooking as per standards of ISO 22000:2005, and monitoring the critical control
points through temperature control.
Good Storage Practices

The raw material storage and issue is an important as it has a direct impact on food
quality and wastage reduction. Some of the efforts made by APF are mentioned below.
• Maintaining good storage conditions for the raw materials to keep them cool, dry,
and clean
• Following the rule of First Expiry First Out (FEFO)
• Controlling pest infestation
15
"Akshaya Patra, Gandhinagar: supply chain challenges."
http://vslir.iima.ac.in:8080/jspui/handle/11718/13519. Accessed 27 Sep. 2018.
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Good Distribution Practices

The distribution system affects cost, responsiveness and service quality and one of the
significant vertical of the supply chain.
• Proper packing by using tight-fitting lids and hygienic containers.
• Transportation of meal through specially designed trucks from kitchen to schools.
Regarding procurement, TAPF insisted that the raw materials be packed properly in
clean gunny bags or any other food grade/safe plastic materials and not be in contact
with bags of cement, chemicals, soap powders, non vegetarian items, etc. It is also
ensured that raw materials are delivered in neat and clean, closed or covered vehicles.
The acceptance and rejection criteria are based on the quality and safety of the raw
material. The rejected goods are sent back to the supplier, in case quality checks turned
out to be negative.

SUPPLY CHAIN CHALLENGES
In many locations, Akshaya Patra has received rice as a subsidy from the central
government, however it was reported many times that the rice was poor quality. Rice
from the Food Corporation of India (FCI) is sold by farmers to the FCI through a
middleman. Since price is set by weight, the middlemen often added foreign objects to
increase tonnage. Akshaya Patra believes that within the supply chain, these objects were
added to the food grain to maximize profit and called this practice a “very open secret”.
Therfore, APF thoroughly cleans the government rice by using a destoning machine to
separate the rice from other non-food products (see Exhibit 5) and often found that 20%
of each bag of rice was unusable.10 In the past, Akshaya Patra had avoided poor quality
rice by exchanging the government-issued rice for that which was available in the market
and of higher quality, paying cash for the difference in price. However, new regulations
prevented them from continuing this practice.
A bigger challenge involves funding. Akshaya Patra has an annual budget of $35 million,
and 60 percent of that comes from the Indian government in the form of cash or
donations of food. Despite support from high-profile companies (such as Adobe
Systems, Caterpillar, and the State Bank of India), raising funds is a constant struggle.
Recently, according to Chandani (who is he/she), the organization has made headway by
focusing on its online efforts and by gaining celebrity endorsements. But raising money
is only part of the fundraising equation. Equally important is being able to raise it at a
steady pace. “Making our income more predictable while scaling up is a challenge,” says
Sridhar Venkat, CEO. The volatility of food markets in India exacerbates that
challenge.16 Over the past decade, the country has experienced not only regular price
spikes but also long-term inflation that has outpaced overall economic growth. To
manage that volatility, Akshaya Patra now procures some of its produce from commodity
16
"Akshaya Patra - Stanford Social Innovation Review." 9 Nov. 2015,
https://ssir.org/articles/entry/case_study_akshaya_patra. Accessed 27 Sep. 2018.
11
619-0012-1
brokers, with whom it can sign long-term contracts. But that’s no guarantee of price
stability. Other processing challenges include:
• The roti cut in the atta sheet is not always round. Some even have folded in them.
These are manually inspected, removed, and recycled. Due to this, instead of
40,000 rotis per hour, approximately 35,000 rotis were produced per hour.
• Undercooked or overcooked rotis are discarded by two workers stationed at the

end of the roti machine. Since this is being carried out manually, some
inappropriately cooked rotis go unnoticed and get packed into the containers.
• Breakdown in the equipment is being used in the kitchen caused delay in the
cooking time, thereby leading to late distribution of food to the schools. There is
not sufficient standby equipment, and even when there is, they are not always
ready for quick and easy start up for use.
• The kitchen area where the vegetables are being cooked have an open section to

facilitate the movement of the containers to the vehicles which can lead to
contamination of the food. Air curtains are considered a possible solution. Also,
the vegetables are being stirred in open containers.
• In case the requirement of any school was below 600 rotis, the capacity of the
medium-sized containers would not be utilized optimally, resulting in higher

space occupancy in the vehicle.
• High temperatures in the kitchen owing to the steam caused fatigue among the
workers.
• The routes are not optimized with respect to the maximum number of schools that
can be covered. Global Positioning System is being proposed, given the General
Packet Radio Service network connectivity.
• Children are happy with the meal and are looking forward to the arrival of the
delivery vehicle. On rare instances of delay, there is impatience, and even
distraction from the school work. Non-delivery has never been an issue.
Other more immediate challenges which are faced by the organization are those about
type of the kitchen that is, centralized or decentralized.
The main challenges in a centralized kitchen are:
● Distribution issue: It’s difficult to transport the food all over to villages due to
lack of infrastructure.
● Food is neither nutritious nor fresh: The food is packed for about 10 hours
which is hence not healthy to consume.
The main challenges in a decentralized kitchen are:
● Corruption and theft: Due to lack of facilities in many of the villages, there
have been many corruption cases filed against the local villagers.
● Attrition rate: Women trained for kitchens move to nearby hotels.
12
619-0012-1
CONCLUSION
Akshaya Patra is a vast organization which has to heavily rely on its efficient Supply
Chain. The enormity of the task from the preparation of thousands of meals to transport
in the right quantities to right schools at the correct time calls for a great need for
coordination between all the segments which Akshaya Patra has remarkably achieved
through its constant efforts in improvements with the help of various technologies.
Taking the leverage of technology, it has also made the meal preparation process more
efficient and at the same time improving the quality of the meals. However, it has to
more agile in order to reduce the flow time (i.e. duration between food is prepared and
consumed at school) of meals. But it is a known fact that the there are still thousands of
schools which are out of reach of the benefits of these meals and to reach them, APF will
have to further incorporate innovations to expand this business in effective way by
enhancing both leanness and agility in its supply chain.

Exhibit 1
13
Exhibit 3
Exhibit 2
619-0012-1
14
Exhibit 4
619-0012-1
15
Exhibit 5
619-0012-1
16

Akshaya Patra: Delivering Food To School Children: Case 619-0012-1

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© 2019, Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS - Pilani).

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