a tiffin is a packed meal. the word comes from british india, where it meant a light lunch, and it stuck to the stacked metal containers the lunch came in. a tiffin service is a business that cooks those meals and delivers them to you, usually home style indian food, usually on a regular basis.
in mumbai, dabbawalas have delivered hundreds of thousands of tiffins a day for over a century. in the uk, tiffin services grew up in the same places indian communities did: southall, harrow, leicester, birmingham, slough. most are small, local, and run from a kitchen near you with a weekly menu.
how a traditional uk tiffin service works
- you sign up for a weekly or monthly plan
- the cook sets the menu for each day
- a driver drops the tiffin at your door, often daily, within a few miles of the kitchen
- you return the containers or they are collected
it works well if you live near the kitchen and like what the cook makes. it works less well if you are outside the delivery radius, want to choose your own dishes, or do not want to commit to a plan.
how dayli does it
dayli keeps the tiffin shape and changes the rules.
- you build the tray. four compartments, rice, dal, curry and fry's, and you pick each one from the week's menu
- no subscription. order the trays you want, when you want them
- uk wide. cooked in london, chilled, delivered next day by DPD to every uk mainland postcode, not just the streets around the kitchen
- chilled, not frozen. trays go straight into your fridge and reheat in minutes
the full explanation, with a comparison table against a typical tiffin service, is on what is a dayli tiffin.
what does a tiffin cost in the uk?
prices vary a lot with the kitchen and the plan. dayli trays start from £6.99, paid per tray, with nothing else to sign up for.
what is in a tiffin?
the classic is rice, a dal, a curry and a dry side, sometimes with a chapati or a chutney. that is exactly the dayli tray layout. the week's dishes are on the menu.
how to find a tiffin service that delivers to you
search "tiffin service" plus your town and you will find the local kitchens. if there is none near you, or you want to choose your own dishes, dayli delivers to every uk mainland postcode: find your city or region on where we deliver and enter your postcode at checkout.