Manoj Mahto, a rickshaw puller in Gurgaon’s Dhanwapur area, spends ₹30 for his lunch every day. That fetches him hygienically prepared dal, chapattis, rice and vegetables along with some salad. For dinner, he opts for the ₹20 plate, which has five chapattis, a vegetable, salad and chutney. Under ₹50 a day, this migrant worker from Bihar has two square meals a day, minus the risk of falling ill from consuming unhygienic dhaba food.

For Ranjit Galsinh, a 35-year-old private security guard, it is the freshness of vegetables and affordable pricing that draw him to the Sikanderpur outlet of Janta Meals every day. The low-priced food seller is popular with schools, NGOs, factory sites, cafeterias, and small and medium enterprises in Gurgaon.

In a market saturated with quick-service restaurants and high-end dining options alike, a Dutch entrepreneur sensed an opportunity in providing quality food to low-income groups in Indian cities. And going by the number of plates Janta Meals sells every day — 9,000 — it might well be on way to becoming India’s first food chain for the urban poor.

“We expect to serve up to 20,000 meals a day by October 2015,” says Jesse van de Zand, the Dutchman who co-founded Janta Meals along with Prabhat Agarwal and Apeksha Porwal in 2013.

It was Agarwal, in fact, who had first felt the need for such nutritious and hygienically prepared affordable meals while running his NGO, Aravali Scholars, in Sikanderpur Basti. When he met Zand in 2013, the latter was looking for opportunities to invest in early-stage social enterprises.

“I liked the idea (of providing hygienic food at economical prices) and started a pilot in June as a restaurant,” says Zand. The team soon discovered that running the business in slum areas was not easy as the people’s ability to pay fell far below the eatery’s operating costs. Moreover, water and electricity connections were unreliable.

The trio instead opted for the centralised kitchen model, with deliveries made to outlets. The centralised kitchen in Gurgaon is run jointly by Janta Meals and Akshaya Patra, the largest supplier to the country’s mid-day meal schemes. “We can maintain low prices through efficient cooking and large volumes. Since Akshaya Patra produces in very large quantities (for mid-day meal), their supplies are cheap, giving us the benefits of scale,” says Zand. The food is packed in insulated boxes and distributed to the franchises.

Twelve people, including four cooks and a manager, run the kitchen. The Janta Meals kitchen is completely mechanised — from washing, peeling and cutting vegetables to making chapattis. “We don’t need anyone for these tasks,” says Zand. This reduces manpower cost to a fraction of what is incurred by small restaurants.

Yet another step in running a low-cost operation involves standardising the recipes to ensure consistent taste and further reduce manpower. “We are working on a standard operation procedure (SOP), which will involve using measured quantities of ingredients for any dish,” says Zand.

Moreover, under the franchise model, each franchisee orders a certain number of meals based on demand and any leftovers are its loss. “Entrepreneurs who run the outlets order from us in advance. They can usually predict the requirements fairly well,” he adds.

Janta Meals trains these micro-entrepreneurs in the hospitality and basic accounting skills needed to run an outlet. It also assists with capital to set up the outlet. “We inspect the franchisee outlets regularly to ensure that hygiene levels are maintained, and impose a fine for violations.”

With 30 outlets, Janta Meals is breaking even within two years of launching. Zand is hopeful that the number of outlets will increase to 100 by 2015-end. He is more than ready to feed that ambition. “The centralised kitchen is big enough for 15,000 meals in one batch. I am sure we can handle the volumes,” he says.