Introduction: The Problem of an Unhealthy Lunch

With life back to normal, after two excruciating years of online classes, students are now
spangling their school premises. While this is a cheerful sight, one problem has reinstated itself:
good food during tiffin/lunch period. The most common practice for schools is to lease their
canteens or cafeterias to external parties. To make the overall agreement less costly, quality is
more often than not compromised. Hence we see, school cafeterias sell local snacks, junk food
and sugary, carbonated drinks. The foods are generally calorie dense. Sadly, students
synonymize these with “Lunch”. Delectable and attractive, they only fill up the stomachs of
famished students, who, having eaten unhealthy food, day after day, often suffer from obesity,
food poisoning, typhoid, diarrhea, dysentery, typhoid, heartburn, peptic ulcer, jaundice etc. Most
schools start early in the morning, so parents, especially mothers, have a hard time preparing
tiffin/lunch boxes for their children. Working mothers have it even harder. And so, the tiffin
boxes that students carry to school often hold subpar lunches. In any case, this can become
expensive and cumbersome for the students to carry in their already book laden backpacks.

The Solution: Dabba

It is impossible to let this be the condition in which we put our future generation in. Albeit this
has been going on for decades, yet the scenario is deteriorating as food quality diminishes and
the prices rev up. Dabba is an innovative step which aims at bringing good food to canteens with
a view to nourishing students so that they hold the reins of the future with strong hands.

Now, what is “good food”? Food that is healthy, tasty, affordable and convenient. Dabba
understands that each student has individual needs, whether they be because of medical
conditions or preferences. In line with this, Dabba will team up with schools and provide lunch
boxes. These will be packed with delicious food items prepared with care and see to the fact that
students maintain a balanced diet. There will be a different menu set for each weekday to beat
the monotony. Apart from these default week menus, students who have preferences (e.g
vegetarians) or medical conditions (e.g. lactose intolerance) will have the option to choose what
they want to eat from Dabba’s checklist on its website. Students will fill in a form that is
downloadable from the website. Lunch boxes will be sent to schools based on information
gathered from these forms. The periphery of Dabba’s operation will be Dhaka.

Sizing Up the Market

The initial target market for Dabba will be exclusively in Dhaka, consisting of parents whose
incomes are BDT 35,000 or above. It will particularly focus on working parents and health-
conscious parents. The calculation of TAM (Total Accessible Market) yields a figure of $1351
M, while the values for SAM (Serviceable Available Market), and SOM are $135.1 M and $33.8
M respectively.