Now, piping hot lunch near your office

The Kudumbasree’s ‘Food on Wheels’ wagon in Kozhikode city. 

Within a fortnight, office goers in Kozhikode willhave food courts coming to them during lunch hours.

‘Food on Wheels’, a prestigious project of the Gender Park, taken up by Kudumbasree CDS of Kozhikode Municipal Corporation as a pilot project, will hit the streets by the end of the month.

“Unlike in Kochi, or even Thiruvananthapuram to some extend, there aren’t any eateries around major offices in Kozhikode. ‘Food on Wheels’ will have home-made food delivered at major points in the city”, said V. Ramsy Ismail, Kudumbasree Project Officer of the Corporation.

The recent micro entrepreneurship expo of Kudumbasree had proven that there were quite a few units that provided food and catering services.

The ‘Food on Wheels’ was designed especially forthem. The food is taken around in an autorickshaw specially designed for the project. It has a covered van openable on three sides, with counters and cabins inside for each category of food.

The units will have four members each.

They will serve food items such as rice, biryani, kappa-meenkari, snacks, tea,coffee and other traditional food items. A highlight of the system is that the food is cooked following stringent safety standards.

The project is also part of the ‘Eat street’ project envisaged by Minister for Social Justice and Panchayats M.K. Muneer.

A unit costs from Rs.6 to 7 lakh, half of which will be subsidised and the rest will be built on loans. At present, around 30 units have applied to be part of the project. But only one will be launched in the beginning.

“Let us see how it works and then go for more numbers”, Mr. Ismail said.

In the beginning, the units themselves will prepare the food. But eventually, the plan is to construct a centralised kitchen that supplies food for the units who will then take it around the city and serve wherever needed.

Apart from serving lunch at offices, the ‘Food on Wheels’ will be parked near the beach.