Compassionate Beginnings With Big Dreams
In the year 2000, Akshaya Patra was founded, serving 1,500 meals daily across five schools in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. Since those humble beginnings, we have now scaled our operations to serve more than 2.2 million mid-day meals to children across 16 states and 2 union territories, each day.
The Akshaya Patra program originated to address child hunger and promote education. The results were immediate, as headmasters of the first AP-supported schools reported an increase in attendance and marked improvements in student health and academic performance. This small but impactful initiative was the start of our Mid-Day Meal Program.
As the success of the Mid-Day Meal Program spread, we realized that our capacity to supply high quality hand-cooked meals was limited. To address the limitations, Madhu Pandit Dasa, an IIT-Bombay Civil Engineering graduate, took on the challenge of making the Mid-Day Meal Program more efficient by designing the first centralized and fully mechanized kitchen that can produce more than 100,000 high-quality meals in 5 hours while maintaining the quality and nutritional value of the food.
Over the last two decades, Akshaya Patra has grown significantly. We now operate 72+ next-generation innovative kitchens in 16 states and 2 union territories in India. Through these efforts, we are creating a more efficient and sustainable solution to improve school attendance, health, and educational outcomes for children.
Vision
No child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger
