Upcoming Kitchens of The Akshaya Patra Foundation

Akshaya Patra has always strived to provide the much-needed school meals to children in a sustainable way while expanding its base to newer locations. Over the years, it gradually increased its beneficiary base by starting kitchens across different locations of the country. In the near future, it plans to add around 20 more kitchens so that more children can be benefitted with the goodness of mid-day meals.

“No child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger.” With this vision, The Akshaya Patra Foundation, an NGO in India has been providing nutritious school lunch to children since 2000. Initially, the NGO served food to only 1,500 children in five Government schools in Bengaluru. Soon it comprehended the dire need of food to support education of children and thus began expanding its reach to newer locations. Today, the Foundation provides daily school meals to 17,62,133 children studying in 14,702 Government schools and Government-aided schools in 40 locations of 12 states.

Akshaya Patra has been recognised as the world’s largest NGO-run school meal programme. So that more and more children can be benefitted, the Foundation employs two models of kitchen: centralised kitchens and decentralised kitchens. The centralised kitchen format can be seen mainly seen in urban and semi-urban areas, and are large cooking units with the capacity to prepare one lakh meals per day. The decentralised kitchens are established to provide meals in remote areas. Irrespective of the kitchen type, Akshaya Patra ensures that children receive hygienic and safe food each time, by following several measures during each stage of production – pre-production, production, and post production. Some of the measures are as follows:

The Foundation has set itself the mission, ‘To feed five million children by 2025.’ Thus, to achieve it, this NGO in India is continuously and sustainably progressing and expanding its operational base. Soon, there will 23 more kitchens in addition to the existing 40 kitchens. Below is a quick view of the locations where Akshaya Patra will establish its next kitchens: Each Akshaya Patra kitchen is a storehouse of nutrition and hope. The meals cooked here positively impacts the health of children while supporting their education too. Support Akshaya Patra to continue providing ‘unlimited food for education’ so that each and every child in the country are healthy and educated.