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Ep 6. Bhawani Singh Shekhawat, CEO The Akshaya Patra Foundation UK: The Indian disrupter tackling food poverty in schools
45 Plays4 years ago
“We are all born geniuses and the purpose of human life is to find an interface for that genius... and food can truly be the catalyst for that interface.”
3.5 BILLION meals and counting...
Bhawani Singh Shekhawat is the Chief Executive of The Akshaya Patra Foundation UK. The Foundation started 20 years ago in India, to tackle the dual issues of classroom hunger and access to education for disadvantaged children.
The Foundation’s guiding vision is that no child should be deprived of an education because of hunger.
This is the remarkable story of how The Akshaya Patra Foundation grew from serving meals to 1,500 students, to serving over 3.5 billion meals to date, through the creation of an internationally award-winning Food for Education Programme.
The Akshaya Patra Foundation is, today, highly acclaimed as the world’s largest non-profit run Mid-day Meal Programme, serving about 2 million meals daily. Its work has been recognised by the World Economic Forum, it has been formulated as a Case Study at Harvard Business School and in 2019 the Foundation received the BBC Global Food Champion Award.
The Akshaya Patra Foundation is now expanding its work in the UK, serving free, nutritious food to the homeless and to children vulnerable to food poverty, during school holidays.
In this episode Bhawani talks about the importance of food and how it plays a key role in creating a better society. He demonstrates how through the power of great questions, organisations and individuals can access more of their genius. And he highlights powerful lessons in leadership along the way.
This episode was recorded in October 2020, via Skype.
Guest Biography
Bhawani Singh Shekhawat has led The Akshaya Patra Foundation UK since 2016. Prior to that he had an extensive career in the corporate world leading large multi-national teams in organisations including Nielsen, Reckitt Benckiser and Coca-Cola, across multiple geographies. He is the Co-Founder of the Adhyayan Foundation and serves as a Non-Executive Director on a number of Boards, including The Vedica Scholars Programme and Women’s Alliance and HaikuJAM. Bhawani is a listed member of the London Bureau of Speakers on Customer Centricity, Insight, Innovation and Leadership.
Links
https://www.tapf.org.uk
https://www.akshayapatra.org
3.5 BILLION meals and counting...
Bhawani Singh Shekhawat is the Chief Executive of The Akshaya Patra Foundation UK. The Foundation started 20 years ago in India, to tackle the dual issues of classroom hunger and access to education for disadvantaged children.
The Foundation’s guiding vision is that no child should be deprived of an education because of hunger.
This is the remarkable story of how The Akshaya Patra Foundation grew from serving meals to 1,500 students, to serving over 3.5 billion meals to date, through the creation of an internationally award-winning Food for Education Programme.
The Akshaya Patra Foundation is, today, highly acclaimed as the world’s largest non-profit run Mid-day Meal Programme, serving about 2 million meals daily. Its work has been recognised by the World Economic Forum, it has been formulated as a Case Study at Harvard Business School and in 2019 the Foundation received the BBC Global Food Champion Award.
The Akshaya Patra Foundation is now expanding its work in the UK, serving free, nutritious food to the homeless and to children vulnerable to food poverty, during school holidays.
In this episode Bhawani talks about the importance of food and how it plays a key role in creating a better society. He demonstrates how through the power of great questions, organisations and individuals can access more of their genius. And he highlights powerful lessons in leadership along the way.
This episode was recorded in October 2020, via Skype.
Guest Biography
Bhawani Singh Shekhawat has led The Akshaya Patra Foundation UK since 2016. Prior to that he had an extensive career in the corporate world leading large multi-national teams in organisations including Nielsen, Reckitt Benckiser and Coca-Cola, across multiple geographies. He is the Co-Founder of the Adhyayan Foundation and serves as a Non-Executive Director on a number of Boards, including The Vedica Scholars Programme and Women’s Alliance and HaikuJAM. Bhawani is a listed member of the London Bureau of Speakers on Customer Centricity, Insight, Innovation and Leadership.
Links
https://www.tapf.org.uk
https://www.akshayapatra.org
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:08
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Charity CEO Podcast, the podcast for charity leaders by charity leaders, with candid, meaningful conversations that really get beneath the surface of issues. This show aims to inspire, inform and deliver practical insights on the challenges facing charity leaders today, for the benefit of leaders across the sector and for those who care about the important work of charities.
Guest Introduction: Bhavani Singh Shekhawat
00:00:33
Speaker
I'm your host, Divya O'Connor, and each episode I will be interviewing a charity chief executive who will share with us their insights, knowledge and expert opinion on a particular topic or area of expertise.
00:00:44
Speaker
My guest this episode is Bhavani Singh Shekhawat, Chief Executive of the Akshaya Patra Foundation UK.
Mission of Akshaya Patra Foundation
00:00:51
Speaker
The Foundation was started 20 years ago in India and was set up to solve two pressing issues. One, millions of children coming to school hungry, thereby impacting their ability to learn. And two, access to education for disadvantaged children. The Foundation's guiding vision is that no child should be deprived of an education because of hunger.
00:01:15
Speaker
What we are about to hear is a remarkable story of how the Akshay Patra Foundation grew from serving meals to 1,500 students to today having served over 3.5 billion meals and created an internationally award-winning food for education program.
Food's Role in Society & Leadership Lessons
00:01:34
Speaker
In this episode, Bhavani talks about the importance of food and how it plays a key role in creating a better society. He demonstrates how, through the power of great questions, organizations and individuals can access more of their genius. And he highlights powerful lessons in leadership along the way. I hope you enjoy the show. Hi, Bhavani. Welcome to the show. Thank you, Divya. Thanks for having me. Delighted to be here.
00:02:03
Speaker
So we always start off the show with an ice break around, which is usually 60 seconds of some lighthearted fun questions, really to enable our listeners to get to know you a little bit. However, based on some feedback that I've had from listeners, we're going to try a slightly different format today. So rather than having a 60 second countdown, I'm just going to ask you a few set questions. So if you're ready, we can kick off with question one. Right. Totally bracing myself.
00:02:31
Speaker
Can you name a book or a person that has had a profound impact on you as a leader? I think the book would be The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth, probably one of the finest books I've read. It impacted me quite deeply and the person is well behind the book, the author. Question two, what are three words that your team would use to describe you at your best? I think they would definitely talk about integrity,
00:03:00
Speaker
passion and perhaps casual. What are three words that your children would use to describe you? And I doubt these would be the same. The most common word I've heard these days is weird. So it's probably weird, weird and weirder. They would say one or two nice things, but I think they find people like me strange in any case. So yeah, weird, but in a nice way, I hope.
00:03:30
Speaker
Perhaps that's what all children say of their parents. So next question is, what TV show have you binged on during lockdown? Oh gosh, I really do not watch too much TV. I do watch a little bit of these OTT programs like Netflix, but there is an Indian show called Bandish Band-Aids, which is on classical music. And I think it's one of the finest short TV series in a long, long time. So yeah, I've probably watched
00:04:00
Speaker
two or three hours of it in one sitting. If you would call that binging. Then the final icebreaker question, if you had the opportunity to interview anyone in the world, dead or alive, who would it be and what one question would you like to ask them? I would love to meet Einstein and ask him that what would he ask Sherlock Holmes if he ever met Sherlock Holmes?
00:04:29
Speaker
Because I think I find these two characters really, really fascinating. The mind of Einstein and the brain of Sherlock Holmes have been two fascinating subjects of inquiry for me. So yes, I'd love to get the two of them together. Wow, I really love that. Nobody has given us an answer so far in that context. So that's brilliant.
Growth & Impact of Akshaya Patra Foundation
00:04:53
Speaker
So Bhavani, you are the chief executive of the Akshaya Pathra Foundation UK. The foundation started in India about 20 years ago to tackle the dual issues of classroom hunger and educational access for disadvantaged children. Correct.
00:05:11
Speaker
Today, it is highly acclaimed as the world's largest nonprofit run midday meal program serving about 2 million meals every day in India. Its work has been recognized by the World Economic Forum. It has been formulated as a case study at Harvard Business School. And last year, the foundation received the BBC Global Food Champion Award. So Bhavani, tell us about how the Akshay Parthra Foundation started and what is its vision and mission.
00:05:40
Speaker
First of all, thank you very much for that very generous introduction. We are all privileged to be a part of this ecosystem which Akshayapatra encapsulates. And Akshayapatra literally is Sanskrit for a pot of food that never runs out.
00:05:56
Speaker
So Akshaya literally means limitless and Patra, as you can imagine, is the root of the word pot. So it is a pot of food that is limitless and the name derives from mythology, et cetera, et cetera. But essentially the organization was set up, I think, and I'd like to believe largely on a whim.
00:06:14
Speaker
In other words, the people who are behind Akshayapatra, who were really the anchors and the pillars of Akshayapatra, were people who were constantly questioning the state of affairs that
00:06:26
Speaker
that the world presented. And clearly one of the biggest challenges was that why do we have this amazing paradox of on one hand, our global economy galloping away and yet we still struggle with poverty, malnutrition, children not going to school, et cetera. So the organization was set up to try and figure out a way in which we could empower education because it is an area that all of us really believe is an area that everyone should invest behind.
00:06:56
Speaker
But how would we empower education in a way that education delivers on the promises of education? So what if education wasn't just about people getting degrees or enrollment numbers or classroom attendance? What if education was truly seen to be that force for good that dramatically changed countries, nations, economies, and people at an individual level as well? So Akshay Patra was set up to try and ensure that a large number of children actually went to school.
00:07:25
Speaker
But as they went into school, they also received education in the finest possible manner. And as we were going about looking at this, we realized that actually what powered education was not education. In other words, if you were to put the best technology in classrooms, economic furniture, paint all of our wonderful walls orange and train our teachers and improve curriculum and do all of the things that
00:07:49
Speaker
good education institutes must do then the best funded schools would also then produce the happiest, healthiest children and that clearly wasn't the case and we found that actually what powered education was nutrition which was an often ignored area that understand until the body is served right it's very hard for the mind to function well and therefore
00:08:13
Speaker
combining the very, very strong tenets of Ayurveda, which is an ancient Indian system of looking at food as a way of life, as opposed to purely organ elliptic or sensorial exchanges between the environment and the body. So if that was what powered the body, what would fuel the mind? And with that sort of concept, Akshay Patra was set up to provide a fantastic plate of food in the classroom that allowed children to
00:08:42
Speaker
to study better and eventually truly get educated. And as we started doing this, we also realized that this was not going to be successful if it was A, piecemeal, B, at a small scale. We had to look at ways in which we could solve this issue of hunger, malnutrition, poor education, this whole conundrum with speed in that scale and subsequently we introduced
00:09:08
Speaker
a whole range of science in the way we did this, science, engineering, which did not dilute the philosophy, but really allowed the organization to gallop away. So that's truly the genesis of Akshay Patra.
00:09:20
Speaker
Interesting. I know, Varani, that you describe Akshay Pathra essentially as being a manufacturing nonprofit organization, and you alluded there to the use of engineering technology. How have you harnessed the latest technology to really achieve scale and impact in addressing food insecurity?
Scaling with Technology & Partnerships
00:09:39
Speaker
I think it starts with three very, very strongly underpinning philosophies. One is, we do believe that at the heart of it, everything
00:09:48
Speaker
that we as sentient human beings do should exist to serve. So whether it is us as individuals or the organizations we create and the communities we work in, the purpose of human life is to serve and serve in the best possible manner. And to that extent, we also believe that at the heart of it, every organization, whether you are a GE or a British Airways or a Unilever, the purpose of the organization is to serve. And therefore every organization
00:10:18
Speaker
Every enterprise is a social enterprise. So we set about finding ways in which we could speak to a Siemens, to an Accenture, to a Cisco to say, yes, you're not in the world of charity. You're definitely not in the world of food manufacturing. But what could we do to harness what you do to produce a plate of food? So using that philosophy and the belief that we could find every organization
00:10:47
Speaker
willing to serve provided we've made it easier for them. So how do we harness their genius with our purpose? And that truly I think was really a breakthrough approach for us and has been very successful, I must say.
00:11:02
Speaker
I think this concept of harnessing genius and purpose really comes through from your example of Einstein and Sherlock Holmes, but essentially how do you bring the best minds together to solve some of these big problems? Almost we are the physical and the metaphysical. So Einstein was more interested in the metaphysical and Sherlock Holmes was interested in the physical. And if you understand the two together,
00:11:28
Speaker
in a way that is purposive, not just purely fickle or perhaps even rudimentary. If we combine it with a purpose, then magic happens. Magic is the outcome. We never pursue it. Yes, and I love the partnership model that you talked about there that in some ways allows
00:11:47
Speaker
companies to experiment and innovate and test new technology that through the framework of the Akshay Pathra Foundation, that they can then commercialize. And the obvious benefit to the foundation is helping achieve scale and utilizing that technology in order to produce a plate of food, as you say. Exactly. And for me, it's always been a fascinating journey that how could we take science that powers a Rolls Royce, perhaps, or the world's most fantastic engines
00:12:18
Speaker
to really improve how a plate of food, a pasta dish or a rice dish is put together. And if we can find a segue for the two to happen, which can happen, obviously, at the end of it, it's very, very basic principles of science. But if you can find a way of harnessing it and then deploying it with speed and that scale, then we can create a tremendous difference to the world we engage with.
00:12:45
Speaker
Yes, so I know that in India you have 55 facilities or kitchens producing about 100 to 150,000 meals per day. And I actually saw that earlier this year. Per kitchen. Yes, indeed. So that's an incredibly large number. And Bhavani, I saw that you earlier this year opened a kitchen in my hometown of Chennai. So I certainly
00:13:08
Speaker
look forward to visiting that kitchen the next time I'm in Chennai. I mean, depending on when we can all fly internationally again. And there again, since you mentioned Chennai, we are experimenting with a very, very different model. We realized that we serve a midday meal based on Ayurvedic principles. The meal is served at about 11, half 11 because a lot of these children come to school hungry. They haven't had anything to eat and they may not have anything to eat since last night. So,
00:13:36
Speaker
They can't wait till one o'clock to have their lunch. So this meal is served to them at 11. What we started to realize in Chennai that as sort of progress happens and economic well-being begins to take shape, these children may have had something to eat at night and maybe they've had a glass of milk. So we're also starting a breakfast model in Chennai. So for the first time in India, we are serving hot, freshly prepared, locally sensitized breakfast to children when they come to school so that
00:14:06
Speaker
when they have their afternoon meal a little later in the day, they are ready for that meal too. So it's a part of our innovative work. So you'd see the breakfast model in your hometown. Brilliant. So if I go to your kitchen in Chennai, I'll be served hot idlis and dosas and sambar first thing in the morning. Yes, and paisam and pongal. Oh, wow. Excellent.
00:14:27
Speaker
So, Varani, I know that you are now building a kitchen in the UK, and I understand that this facility is going to be the first of its kind in this country. Now, I think that this is something that's really, really interesting because normally we hear about charity frameworks being developed in the West, which are then taken to places like India and Africa and the developing world. But this is a charitable structure and model that has been developed in India that is being
00:14:57
Speaker
brought here. So can you talk to us about the aspirations and the challenges of bringing the Akshay Pathra model to the UK? Well, it never was really our aspiration to begin with. It's not something that we put into our long-term plan and created sort of a robust strategy around. It was largely being very fluid and being very sensitive to the world that we are in.
00:15:21
Speaker
So I had two realizations. One was during my corporate days that there is no such thing as the first world and the third world. These are macroeconomic agglomerations and perhaps political constructs as opposed to truly, truly people constructs. There is enough of the third world in the first world and there is enough of the first world in the third world. So therefore, science, technology, best practices must travel both ways. We have to admit and we have to understand that
00:15:49
Speaker
what GE calls reverse innovation is something that could be the primary source of innovation. That you could create something that has been created in a state of duress and then deployed where they never expected that duress to happen in the first place. So Akshay Patra in the UK always existed as a fundraising arm for our work in India. We felt that we could expand
00:16:13
Speaker
range of services we provide a lot faster a lot better if we had a wider network of people supporting it as well as some of our advocacy work whether it was with World Food Programme or the United Nations. A few years ago a report landed on my desk which for the first time opened my eyes to the challenges of hunger and particularly hunger amongst children in the UK and when I first read that report it was an all-party parliamentary group report. I
00:16:40
Speaker
honestly did not believe it. I thought this was probably too melodramatic because we don't really see some of this in evidence in the world around us in the ecosystems that we live, work and play and travel. But then there was this report. Then we started looking at the details of that report. We started visiting some of the schools. We started talking to some of the stakeholders and we realized the problem was actually bigger than what the report represented.
00:17:08
Speaker
That was the moment when we as a team decided that, look, if we believe that we as an organization have some capabilities and the experience as well to solve something with speed and that scale, so if not us who, and if not now, when. So it was very audacious, I must say. It was even stupid to start thinking of, you know what, let's try and create a model here. So we started with that over the last 18 months.
00:17:35
Speaker
created a few pilot initiatives, we aversioned them. This summer, we served about 40,000 meals, a holiday hunger meals to children in greater London.
UK Kitchen Plans for Local Food Insecurity
00:17:45
Speaker
We tested recipes and now we are close to launching our, what we believe is a fantastic, fantastic state of the art purpose-built kitchen to really help a large number of children, families who are disadvantaged from a food point of view.
00:18:01
Speaker
Yes, I love the idea of delivering at speed and at scale. And I think certainly during this COVID crisis, the charity sector has really had to respond to increased need and increased demand in that way. So yes, you spoke there about your sort of holiday hunger program and you beat the hunger program.
00:18:25
Speaker
Where do you hope to take this in the UK in terms of what are your plans here for the next couple of years? For example, are you looking to engage with schools a lot more in terms of bidding for school contracts? Tell us your big vision for the UK. All of the above. Initially, we'd like to serve a large number of people. So far, we've been working with a range of affiliates and serving about 3,000 to 4,000 meals in London every day, six days a week.
00:18:52
Speaker
to people who suffer from food poverty. So these could be rough sleepers, these could be homeless people, these could be people who have a roof on their head but they could really be helped by a hot nutritious meal. So the philosophy remains the same that the food has to be hot, nutritious and fit for purpose. I personally have that philosophy that we'd never serve food that we would never eat ourselves.
00:19:15
Speaker
And if you can't eat it ourselves on a regular basis, then that food is not good enough to be served to other people. So this food is freshly prepared, nutritious, confirms to all of our standards. And we would continue to do that, serve a large number of people who suffer from food poverty. In addition to that, we are introducing our holiday hunger program, which serves children during half term, during school holidays, perhaps an after school club, a range of services to children around food.
00:19:45
Speaker
And subsequently, we'd be really exploring possibilities of serving food in school. Our food is vegetarian. And like I said, it is tasty, it's fresh. Here again, Akshay Patra is all about innovation. And we sort of always think, what is it that we can do that only we can do? That's a great line. Which means that what is it that we can do that brings our natural advantages and our natural capabilities and the joys of an unnatural or unknown context?
00:20:15
Speaker
One of the best things about Indian food is that it can truly make vegetarian food fascinating. If you really want to enjoy a very wide range of tasty vegetarian dishes, whether it combines with a pasta or a spaghetti or a tofu dish or even a baked lasagna, applying some of these wonderful Indian practices of how we cook and how we flavor the food can really make it tasty. Although our food is vegetarian,
00:20:43
Speaker
It is not bland and it is not mono-dimensional, uni-dimensional. So we would love to get into engagements with schools and partnerships with local authorities to be able to serve this as a regular meal in a school cafeteria. But that's probably stage two for us. Stage one for us is really, really combating everyday food poverty and holiday hunger.
00:21:06
Speaker
and perhaps an after school club. And then we would pilot and version this model, which we are building in Greater London to begin with, and perhaps take it to other parts of the country as well. We are in conversations with a few other counties as well as universities and organizations that are really, really keen. These universities and organizations have fortunately studied the Akshayapatra model.
00:21:30
Speaker
have immersed themselves in the Akshayapatra model and they're delighted that we're taking this rather audacious and perhaps even foolhardy, bordering on being foolhardy step of doing something here during COVID.
00:21:43
Speaker
You know, as you were talking there, Bhavani, I was thinking of my five-year-old son who, every day in school, what he chooses to eat for lunch is a jack of potato and baked beans. Every day. He won't have any salad. He won't have any vegetables with that. Every day it's a jack of potato and baked beans. And actually, I would love it if
00:22:02
Speaker
the actual path of foundation were to serve food in his school. And I know that the school does indeed offer healthy options and alternatives and they don't allow sort of crisps and sugary sweets and things like that.
00:22:18
Speaker
But I don't know to what extent does the school actively engage with children at that lunchtime in order to ensure that every child is eating a nutritionally balanced meal that is actually going to serve them in the classroom. I mean, if you give a five-year-old a choice, he's probably going to eat ice cream for lunch every day.
00:22:38
Speaker
The question I have around this is, what role can parents play in trying to create behavioral change regarding the food that our children eat?
Parental Influence on Children's Food Choices
00:22:49
Speaker
Wonderful question. If you could solve that one question, our world would be in a better place. Because look at the conundrum, look at the paradoxes we have. We have enough food for everyone in the world, and yet there isn't enough for everyone. We have our school menus,
00:23:07
Speaker
that perhaps are designed for parents and are meant to serve children. The menus are sent over to the parents. Parents feel great. What a wonderful spread I've got. My child has got five choices and so on and so forth. And like you said, the child ends up choosing jacket potatoes or perhaps a margarita pizza every single day. And what that means for schools is a very large amount of food is just binned. In the UK, we waste nearly
00:23:36
Speaker
depending on which report you look at, between 12 to 20 billion pounds worth of food every year. And thankfully, there is more conversation around it. Thankfully, there is some work around it as well. And for me, it is one of the biggest paradoxes that why do we have millions of children going hungry and billions and billions pounds of food destroyed? And here's another wonderful, wonderful learning that I'd love to share is that
00:24:02
Speaker
You know, if we have a cabbage and we sort of chuck it in our garden or our backyard, it does not biodegrade. It has to be composted. In other words, you have to spend money to throw food away because the earth does not take back very kindly what it has so generously given us.
00:24:25
Speaker
And we have to stop this. So we have to try and find a way in which parents really begin to understand the whole conundrum around food waste. And I think we need to really look at the insight around us. Our school meals are an extension of the office cafeteria. If you go into an office, you have three choices, a salad bar and you choose what you want and there's a hot sort of caddy there and the chef will prepare what you want.
00:24:53
Speaker
Our school meals should not be that. Our school meals should be an extension of our dinner table at home. My mum never told me, son, here's a choice of five meals, have what you want, and the other four, I'll happily been away and still love you dearly. Not a chance. I can't imagine Indian parents saying that. I can't think of any mum in the world who would have done that. So why should we accept the office cafeteria system in our schools?
00:25:23
Speaker
And that's really where it all begins. I think we need to really question some of the practices that we have allowed and perhaps even participated in in fostering. So it's not just about education around what is nutritious food. It is not just about how to cook nutritious food, but it's about really understanding the ecosystem of food.
00:25:47
Speaker
that we live and work with. If my today after all this learning my children have grown up but I look back 10 years ago and I wish I had known that if I was sent a menu by my school of five meal choices I would question it and I'd say what do you do with the other four because to able to be able to provide these five choices you'd have to produce food that is at least 30% more than what will be consumed so at the very least
00:26:12
Speaker
You're throwing away 30% more and I'm paying for that 30% and the earth is suffering for that 30%. It's a lose, lose, lose, lose, lose model. And we have to question that model. This is more than the education around food. I think we must question the practices that we have allowed to fester and foster. The second thing really is around understanding and we must have more conversations around it.
00:26:37
Speaker
understanding that the food we consume has to be contextual. I saw a little meme the other day which said that you must consume food as medicine or you will consume medicine as food. And that's a very ancient Ayurvedic principle that you must treat food as medicine, as good for you. And what that literally means, however odd and obnoxious this may sound, but what it truly means is that food is contextual. Food is designed to serve a purpose
00:27:07
Speaker
When you are a pregnant or a lactating mom, you're told what to eat. If you are a recovering senior, you're told what to eat. If you're an athlete training to run a marathon, you'd be trained on what to eat and how to eat it. So why should the context of the classroom where the child has to learn complex math, science, languages, behavior, discipline, sensibilities, camaraderie, collaboration, why should that context not be fueled by food?
00:27:34
Speaker
And why should we in that context be eating food that is high on sugar, high on salt, high on bile, high on testosterone, high on estrogen, and therefore low on all of the things that food must facilitate in that classroom? I think that's really where education needs to begin. What is our relationship with food? Why has it become purely sensorial? Why have organolytics around food taken over our brains and minds around food?
00:28:00
Speaker
And then automatically people will begin to perhaps relate differently to food, cook it differently, eat differently, choose differently, and then influence the ecosystem differently.
00:28:12
Speaker
I think this is really fascinating and I'd like to delve a little more into the ecosystem of food as you call it. I mean the statistic that you quoted there in terms of almost 20 billion pounds worth of food wasted on an annual basis in the UK and yet in the UK alone we have around 8 million people suffering from food insecurity and food poverty on a daily basis.
00:28:37
Speaker
Certainly during the COVID crisis, we have seen a dramatic increase in the demand from food banks and food vouchers and things like that. So I'm interested to hear your thoughts on how can we as a society start thinking really differently about food and food choice?
Changing Perceptions of Food
00:28:57
Speaker
I think that first of all, we have to have better conversations about food at home. And again, it seems very cliched.
00:29:05
Speaker
But sometimes I believe things are cliched because we refrain from engaging with that deep question and we find it easier to dismiss it as a cliche than to actually engage with it. That our dinner tables have been taken over by television and we are not really paying attention to food as we should at home. And we are not having conversations around food as we should at home.
00:29:30
Speaker
We are not really engaging our hands and bodies and minds with food as we should. So perhaps that's really where, and I know it sounds like a cliche that we must have a better relationship with food, but we must recognize that food is truly the engine for everything we do. We must truly embrace that. So from a young stage, we must have better relationship, better conversations, and perhaps even better structuring of what food means to us in our lives.
00:30:00
Speaker
So do you think the government is doing enough in this context? I mean, education, certainly for parents as well, seems to be a key component here. Yes, and I think a lot more needs to be done. For me, it was fascinating to visit schools. And it was also fascinating that when I used to visit these schools as a parent, I ignored all of this. But when I visited these schools during my Akshay Patrasa avatar,
00:30:26
Speaker
I saw things, sensed them very, very differently. For example, if you walk into a school cafeteria, you will see wonderful signages around. Oh, this lovely carrot wants to talk to you. Oh, this broccoli really, really wants to be friends with you. And oh, look at this wonderful farm from where all of this comes to us.
00:30:47
Speaker
and then within 60 degrees of it is a bar or a table where none of what's on these wonderful soft boards exists. I think we've been paying lip service. To me, that's why it needs a systemic effort. What we are trying to do is we have so super specialized
00:31:10
Speaker
in every single area of food and food delivery, that the three arms that are perhaps evangelizing, talking, educating, and serving, they're not talking to each other. So we have wonderful visuals on the board, we have wonderful elements in our curriculum, and we have dramatically different experiences on the table. So unless and until the three talk to each other, change is not going to happen. And that's truly where
00:31:36
Speaker
I think the government can step in and perhaps create systems and structures and models that allow people to engage with this challenge in a systemic manner rather than a piecemeal manner.
00:31:48
Speaker
Yes, and I think coming back to the Akshay Pathra Foundation and the Sanskrit meaning of the word in terms of being a limitless pot of food, and how you can translate that actually in terms of limitless potential for nutrition to really supercharge education and children in the next generation, and it all begins from there.
00:32:10
Speaker
And these are things that are not rocket science, Divya. These are things that if you wanted, we could introduce tomorrow. For example, in Akshay Patra schools, we do not have a third party serving these children. Children take turns to serve each other. The food is provided by Akshay Patra is delivered and there's obviously members of staff that receive it and make sure that it's all fit and proper.
00:32:34
Speaker
But the children then using a rotor system take turns to serve each other and the staff eats with them. The staff and the children serve each other. The second thing is before they sit down to eat, we always have a minute of silence. The children sit down to eat and they fold their hands in prayer or or just be quiet and say thank you to whoever has made that service possible. And then.
00:33:02
Speaker
they get up and wash their own plates and put them away. And I think these are not rocket science practices. We could do that in our schools.
00:33:12
Speaker
But till such time, we have a health and hygiene organization separate from food safety organization, from food delivery organization, from teaching in curriculum, and to the building services that wants to make sure that X number of children walk into the cafeteria and walk out at times that are specified. These behavioral changes will not happen.
00:33:34
Speaker
So some of these changes we could possibly bring in are not rocket science. They do not require a large consulting organization to create 200 PowerPoint slides and an army of inspectors. Some of these things are largely, they can be set in as best practice, best examples, and then cascaded through at least the network that wants to listen to that best practice.
00:33:58
Speaker
Yes, I love the idea of really integrating the ideas and concepts of gratitude and mindfulness for our children on a daily basis. And it doesn't have to be something that's done as a separate lesson, but actually integrating these practices into the day-to-day is what then serves them and really gets into their consciousness and way of thinking of how they interact with the world and indeed
00:34:25
Speaker
how the world operates. And that's, yeah, I love that suggestion. Exactly. And we could start at home. Yes, indeed. Well, at the moment I've got my son to make sure he takes his plates and his spoons after he's finished eating and puts it on the kitchen countertop in the sink, getting him to wash them himself might be a step too far. But yes, absolutely. Getting them to be conscious of these things at home is the place to start. Exactly.
00:34:54
Speaker
So Bhavani, coming back now to think about your own personal leadership journey, what advice would you give to yourself on day one of first becoming a CEO and having CEO responsibilities?
Leadership Insights: Person Over Position
00:35:09
Speaker
Look, I think first and foremost, it's never about the position. It's always about the person.
00:35:15
Speaker
We pay too much attention to labels and positions and levels and hierarchies and organizational charts and organograms. It just disproportionate amount of work and effort we put in there. We have to dissociate the position from the person and we should always try. I would try and speak to myself as a person, then the position. That's probably has been a big part of my life all along.
00:35:41
Speaker
and I need to make sure that I remind myself of that every single day because the world around me doesn't quite support it. So that's probably that's fundamental to me and the most fundamental thing that it's always about the position and the person. I really prefer if people understood it and people understood it in a way that is every day and not just contextual, we must learn to relate to people as people more
00:36:10
Speaker
than the positions they hold. Yes, I love that. And I think certainly we could all benefit from thinking like that on a day-to-day basis with our interactions with other people and indeed with ourselves in the world. We should support the position. We should support the purpose that that position is there for. But then we must relate to the person. And that's an important distinction.
00:36:35
Speaker
Yes. So Bhavani, as we have now come towards the end of our conversation, which has been absolutely fascinating, do you have any final thoughts or reflections for our listeners? I would just urge everyone to start really understanding their relationship with food in all possible contexts.
00:36:57
Speaker
And perhaps a good place to begin is to start documenting it, to really understand where am I today? Where do I come from? And where is it that I want to go? And understanding that will allow us to engage better with this ecosystem of food. And for us, it's important that our children who truly are the capital that we have, if we truly want to be a nation that is not just G7 from a macroeconomic perspective,
00:37:24
Speaker
But if our per capita incomes have to go up from 35,000 odd pounds to say 100,000 pounds and we truly have to be a happy, healthy nation, then we must improve our relationship with food and the relationship our children have with food.
00:37:39
Speaker
I've been always a believer and I hope one day we create enough data and I would urge all of the universities who'd ever listen to this to say let's start a program to say can we find a correlation between what children eat at school and the GDP and the well-being of a nation because I think if our children eat well in the classroom they would go on to become sentient well-meaning and well-doing and well-being citizens
00:38:04
Speaker
of our nation, and then we'll create the innovation that we want them to create. We'll create the kind of well-being for the nation and the world that we want to happen. And I think in India, we've seen evidence of it. In India, we've seen evidence that in one generation, you could catapult someone from being completely deprived. In other words, someone who was six or seven generations illiterate could become an astrophysicist in one generation.
00:38:30
Speaker
and not just an astrophysicist by a label, but truly a purposive and hugely enthusiastic astrophysicist. If you could have millions and millions of our children becoming that, then we would not just call it a cliché that, you know, be the very best version of yourselves, but truly become the person that
00:38:51
Speaker
is an interface of your genius. That's the reason why we believe we are all born. We're all born geniuses, and the purpose of human life is to find an interface for that genius, and food can truly be the catalyst for that interface. I love that, that food is really supercharging genius in the world. Bhavani, this has been such a fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for being a guest on the show, and thank you for the amazing work that the Akshay Patra Foundation is doing in the world.
00:39:19
Speaker
Thank you Divya, delighted to be here and thank you to all the listeners for this, for a patient hearing. I was really struck by Bhavani's words that the purpose of human life is to serve and that the true purpose of every organisation is also to serve.
Food as Catalyst for Genius & Well-being
00:39:38
Speaker
He truly comes across as someone who's driven by service and by wanting to make the world a better place.
00:39:45
Speaker
I love the idea of food being the interface to finding our genius. That if our children eat well, they will go on to be well-meaning and well-doing citizens of the world who can then create the innovation needed for further progress. And therefore, the classroom context must be fueled by nutritious food, for it is nutrition that powers education.
00:40:07
Speaker
I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation and it has certainly left me with a lot of food for thought. Meanwhile, if you enjoyed the show, please click the subscribe button on your podcast app and consider leaving us a five-star review. It will only take a few seconds and reviews really help make a difference to increase the visibility of the podcast and help spread the word. Visit the charityceo.com website for full show details and to submit questions for future guests. Thank you for listening.