Specifically designed for Indian food and culture, the Tyffyn lunchbox is by far the most technologically advanced ever. Introduced by the manufacturing startup Vaya, the Tyffyn lunchbox has taken India by storm, rapidly selling hundreds of thousands of pieces, propelling Vaya into a manufacturing reality, and turning the Vaya brand into a household name virtually overnight. This is how the power of design transformed a utilitarian cultural icon into the ultimate object of desire in contemporary India.

My passion for food

My mother was an excellent cook, and after I moved from Italy to the USA to attend university, I quickly realized I had to learn how to cook or my life would never taste the same. I would phone my mother in the evening, her lunchtime, so I could ask her the recipe for my dinner, and learn her cooking secrets.

Throughout college, I waited tables in high-end restaurants. There I had a chance to learn how the comfort of a chair, the light of a candle, the weight of a fork, the sounds of the glassware… how they all contribute to the dining experience. My first roommate was a masterful chef, the second was a skilled caterer, and the last was one of the world’s top food stylists. From them I learned about freshness, balancing flavors, packing and moving food, and how a delicacy can be tasted with our eyes, as much as with our palate. 

Food and cuisine are in my blood, and after design they are the biggest passion in my life. When the CEO of Vaya, a then-unknown manufacturing startup, contacted me to work on their first product, a high-tech lunchbox for the Indian market, I saw the ultimate design project.

The predilection for home-cooked meals is so strong in India that in every household there are on average more lunchboxes than people.

Most people in India take a packed lunch with them as they leave in the morning. The custom is so widespread that in Mumbai you will find the Dabbawalas (literally translated as “lunchbox carriers”), a truly unique service that picks up and delivers hundreds of thousands of lunch boxes every morning, from a home or a food service to a workplace; the empties are delivered back on the same day in the afternoon. Their low-tech delivery system is so accurate that it has been the subject of many research studies, and their model has inspired scores of delivery services.

Indian home-cooked meals are made of mostly stewed, heavily spiced dishes, served with rice or flatbread. Since food is considered almost sacred in India, microwave ovens are not very popular. Meanwhile, stews are the perfect food to keep warm and moist for hours, as they develop flavor and consistency over time.

The combination of hot, moist, and spicy means Indian lunchboxes need to be thermally insulated, as well as leak and odor-proof. Indians also favor stainless steel tableware over Western pottery. These specific cultural requirements make imports a far second to the culturally appropriate domestic tiffins, especially if thermally insulated. 

Closing The Loop

The tiffin lunchbox is common to India and the surrounding regions that share much of its culture and cuisine. It is a set of stacked round containers, with a lid, secured by a clamping harness connected to a handle. It is usually cylindrical when assembled, sometimes in the shape of a truncated cone, which allows containers of different sizes.

The origin of the tiffin is lost in time and is the subject of many tales. Its recent development went from enameled and colorfully decorated steel containers to utilitarian stainless steel assemblies, to the use of a vacuum-insulated outer shell to keep the meal warm (think of carrying your soup in a thermos bottle and you get the idea.)

While taking the most recent thermally insulated version to the next development level, my design also reintroduces the decorative beauty of the traditional enameled tiffins. A cleverly designed accessory and slick packaging complete the experience.

Slim Body

We designed the Tyffyn lunchbox with a smooth and compact oval body which allows it to easily slide in and out of a bag, reduces bulging, and gives it its distinct, contemporary look.

Collapsible Handle

To make it even more slick and compact, we designed the handle of the Tyffyn lunchbox so that it can fold and disappear inside the lid.

Pressurizing Latches

The latches of the Tyffyn lunchbox are designed to use the outer shell as a clamping device, locking the inner food containers in place, and applying pressure on their lids and gaskets to provide a perfectly sealed environment.

Finger Grips

Piping hot food makes steel vessels very hard to handle with bare hands. That is why we designed the inner containers of the Tyffyn lunchbox with special heat-insulated finger grips that allow you to hold them when hot.

Partitions

Each of the inner food containers of the Tyffyn lunchbox comes with a BPA-free plastic partition that allows you to split it into halves, allowing greater flexibility in meal management. The inner partitions feature the same integrated gasket found in the container’s lid and in the lunchbox base.

Three Sizes

Sized for appetites large and small, the Tyffyn lunchbox is currently available in three sizes: 600ml (20.3 Oz) with two food containers, 1000ml (33.8 Oz) with three food containers, and 1300 ml (44 Oz) with four food containers.

Smartly Accessorized

A clever lunchbox needs a smart carrying bag. The BagMat™ was designed as the perfect companion to the Tyffyn lunchbox: It is a lunch bag that unzips, opens up completely, and turns into a table mat. Stain repellent, easy to wash, and equipped with a convenient detachable pocket for your cutlery. Its thermal insulation means Indian food can stay even warmer when a Tyffyn lunchbox is carried inside a BagMat.

Packaged for all occasions.

For the Vaya Tyffyn lunchbox, we designed an elegant display box for retail purposes and a rugged ecofriendly carton for e-commerce. Both packaging options are designed to be flexible and to accommodate any of the color or graphics variations, making inventory easier to manage, and avoiding the need for redesign when a new style is introduced.

Ecofriendly E-commerce Packaging

The Tyffyn lunchbox e-commerce packaging solution is efficient, low-cost, recycled/recyclable, with simple, bold, single-color graphics. The e-commerce packaging does not include the BagMat.

I believe that any design project is only as good as its research, and given my lack of familiarity with Indian culture, its cuisine, and the product I was asked to design, this project was going to need a lot of research. In addition to collecting and studying dozens of existing products, I learned about Indian culture, its cuisine, and the Indian dining experience.

This is when I learned what an iconic element of Indian culture the tiffin lunchbox is. Everyone grows up with it, and most adults still use it daily. You will find several tiffin lunchboxes in most households, for different people, needs, or occasions. There are thousands of product options, and making our product the best in this category was going to be a real challenge.

When it comes to housewares and tableware, stainless steel’s durability, easy cleaning, and resistance to staining make it by far India’s favorite material for cookware, tableware, and of course lunchboxes.

In studying competitors’ products, as well as other related products such as soup jars and insulated bottles, it became evident that in all of them, the lid was the weakest spot for heat retention, especially at its attachment to the vacuum-insulated steel body. As heat rises, this also means the weakest spot the spot where the heat tends to travel.

Bottles and jars are filled with liquids, so it makes sense for the lid to be at the top, but a vacuum-insulated tiffin carrier has inner containers, which means the outer lid is not primarily responsible for containment. The lid could be placed at the bottom of the insulated container, trapping the heat inside with the most efficient component: the vacuum-insulated steel shell.

This represented an opportunity that would, at least in theory, make our tiffin carrier more heat-efficient, but it would also give our solution a very distinctive look.

Other details addressing the weaknesses of the competitor’s products were studied as well. The luxurious copper-plated dining containers were also part of the original concept.

The original concept of Vaya Tyffyn lunchbox already had an oval body, which would add to its unique look, while allowing it to fit more easily into a bag. 

Early color and finish studies explored how the product could be tailored to different audiences.

The first round of concepts also explored opportunities for accessories. The BagMat, the Vaya Tyffyn lunchbox companion carrying bag that opens into a placemat, was one of those accessories.

Finally, preliminary technical studies confirmed our volumes and dimensions were aligned with our objectives.

The first concepts explored five different directions for the lunchbox, from which the Vaya Tyffyn lunchbox upside-down approach was selected. 

To date, one more of the original lunchbox concepts, the Vaya Preserve containers, has also gone into production.

After the initial design was selected for development, the next step was a proof of concept: a confirmation that the upside-down approach would indeed allow a better heat performance. 

Several units were modified for this test, to find out how different details would affect the heat retention. The test units were turned upside-down, and rigged using different materials, base designs, and inner details.

The units were tested side-by-side with an original control unit, measuring retention over different periods and in varying conditions. All of the modified upside-down units performed better than the original, we were definitely on the right track.

Starting from the inner food containers and working our way out, shapes and volumes for the Vaya Tyffyn lunchbox were studied and finalized using quick paper mockups.

Two volumes of the inner containers, 300 ml, and 400 ml, turned into modules for a system that would allow the production of the Tyffyn lunchbox with incremental capacities of 100ml, through the development of only the vacuum-insulated steel shell, while sharing all other components.

Outer dimensions, proportions, and details such as the handle of the Vaya Tyffyn lunchbox were also first validated through quick foam and paper mock-ups. 

The design was then further refined in digital 3D models from the handle on top of the Vaya Tyffyn lunchbox…

… to the base at its bottom.

The Vaya Bagmat carrying case also went through a simpler but similar process, parallel to the development of the Vaya Tyffyn lunchbox. 

The whole process led to the production of a 3D printed, painted model for all the components of the Vaya Tyffyn lunchbox and a working prototype of Vaya BagMat, all produced in our workshop. 

Prototypes in hand, we headed for a crucial manufacturing partner and investor meeting in Hong Kong.

We are now ready to move towards the first working prototypes of the Vaya Tyffyn lunchbox, revisions and improvements continue throughout the prototyping process to address manufacturing challenges and usability issues.

All parts, materials, and finishes for the Vaya Tyffyn lunchbox are thoroughly tested according to user scenarios.

3D renderings explore possibilities for surface graphics, and decorative as well as promotional and licensing applications of the Vaya Tyffyn lunchbox.

Meanwhile, parallel to the product and accessories, our graphic design team is also developing the Vaya visual brand, website, and communication package for the launch.

Three styles are selected for the launch of the first 1000 ml Vaya Tyffyn lunchbox, including two printed patterns. More samples are produced, this time to evaluate printing options, which requires more testing of the finishes.

The Vaya BagMat lunch bag is also going through the same development process as the Vaya Tyffyn lunchbox, sampling, prototyping, and testing.

More prototyping and testing for the packaging as well, everything needs to be perfect for the Vaya Tyffyn lunchbox.

Until everything is finally ready for the Vaya Tyffyn lunchbox launch event in Bangalore. A new brand is born.