Tiffin carrier

Tiffin carriers or dabbas are a kind of lunch box used widely in Asia and the Caribbean for tiffin meals. From India, they spread to Pakistan, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Fiji, Mauritius, Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago, where they are now widely used.^[1][2] They are also used extensively in Hungary, primarily to transport restaurant meals for consumption at home. The Hungarian version typically contains soup, a main course, and piece of cake. A very similar device is called Henkelmann in Germany. It is usually round or oval similar to military mess kits. The Henkelmann was very popular until the 1960s, but is very rarely used by Germans today.

In the Indian city of Mumbai, there is a complex and efficient delivery system that regularly delivers hot lunches packed in dabbas to city office workers from their suburban homes or from a caterer. It uses delivery workers known as dabbawalas.

The book Tiffin: An Untold Story covers 172 tiffin carriers, some over a century old.^[3][4]