Sustaining life has always been tough for low- and middle-income households in Pakistan. In today's pandemic situation, it has sadly gotten tougher. With the lockdowns rendering many out of work, making ends meet has become a formidable challenge.
To alleviate the adverse economic fallout of the current crisis, foodpanda has brought a dynamic social empowerment initiative that the country was in a dire need of. Called 'Ghar ka Khana', the initiative has brought financial empowerment to thousands of home-based cooks in all parts of the country.
foodpanda is the ONLY food-delivery app in Pakistan that delivers freshly prepared home-cooked meals to customers in less than 30 minutes. With over 1,000 foodpanda HomeChefs in 18 cities across Pakistan, approximately 2.1 lac orders have been delivered to date. Currently, 60% of foodpanda's HomeChefs are females and 40% are men, and for more than 40% of these people, foodpanda is the only source of income.
foodpanda's Covid19 response
foodpanda's response to the novel coronavirus outbreak has been swift and responsible. To encourage and ensure the strictest hygiene measures among HomeChefs, foodpanda has provided them with special Covid-19 packs that also include awareness messages and hygiene kits, including face mask, gloves and sanitizers.
The company has also delivered over 750 fresh home-cooked meals prepared by MOM-heroes for the on-ground champions fighting the pandemic on the front lines.
In today's virus crisis, the company is taking these efforts up a notch by inviting 100,000 homechefs to join its platform and start earning steady incomes straight from their homes.
Empower Pakistani women
Financial empowerment of Pakistani women has been a focus area of foodpanda. As part of these efforts, the company funded Rs 2.4 million project with Punjab Government's Skill Development Fund to train, onboard, and empower 50 underprivileged women as foodpanda HomeChefs.
Moreover, foodpanda partnered with the USAID Small & Medium Enterprise Activity (SMEA) to empower HomeChefs through online training sessions on entrepreneurship and free access to online courses for SME's & Women Entrepreneurs.
foodpanda also celebrated its most successful woman HomeChef, Saba Mehtab, by flying her in for the prestigious Pakistan Stock Exchange bell-ringing ceremony on Women's Day. Besides her on-stage and TV interviews were also conducted creating a unique and empowering vendor success story. foodpanda was the key sponsors of 'Opportunities for Women' segment at a women's day which was attended by over 300 women.
Aspiring home based vendors can join the foodpanda 1lac HomeChefs initiative by registering on https://www.restaurant.foodpanda.pk/ and start earning from home.