Kevin Kelly over at the “Street Use blog”:http://www.kk.org/streetuse/ recently posted an “article”:http://www.kk.org/streetuse/archives/2007/04/indian_dabbawallas.php about “Dabbawalas”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabbawala, literally ‘those who transport lunch-boxes’ containing home-cooked meals to the workers in India’s factories and offices.

Upon further looking into it, this is an amazingly intricate operation, consisting of 5,000 delivery boys transporting over 175,000-boxes in the three hour lunch period. “MyDabbaWala.com”:http://www.mydabbawala.com/ has some information on the practice, including the beginnings of using technology to reform the century-old system.
Of course, if you’re a tech industry employee in Silicon Valley with a hankering for some good home-made Indian lunches, look no further than “Annadaata.com”:http://www.annadaata.com/, the American (and far pricier) adaptation of the dabbawala.