Turning surplus ingredients into nutritious meals, Pepper Cook Seva Foundation’s Worli community kitchen serves children across the city with dignity and love

Prabhadevi resident Anuja Kohli Mariwala has always believed in helping people and strives to devote 20 per cent of her time to social service. “I also attended Chinmaya Mission’s Gita classes at my house for 10 years, and they constantly tell you to do seva (a selfless act to help the community) to increase your spirituality. So you think less about yourself and your family, and more about the community,” says the hardware and software engineer.

Combining the two things she is most passionate about: food and children,  Mariwala found her purpose. “We are also in the food business, so everything just aligned for me and I decided to feed children. That was going to be my purpose. I started very small, with just 50 kids, to see if we could do it. And I had no intention of expanding or growing,” she says, who eventually set up the Pepper Cook Seva Foundation. Today, her organisation feeds an average of 1,200 children daily in the city’s underserved communities.

She runs a community kitchen in Worli, where she, her staff and volunteers “cook up a storm” to serve children across Bandra, Matunga, Mankhurd and other parts of the city. “We have a very simple purpose: to feed children nutritious, healthy, tasty and fulfilling food. We don’t just fill their stomachs, we feed their souls. The idea is to cook the best possible food we can. We have grown to a point where we get most of our food for free. We source surplus food from farmers, farmers’ markets and companies that have excess stock.

“We run a community kitchen where everyone is welcome. We have knives, aprons, soap, etc. and volunteers come in to cook with us. The food is packed into 20-kg and 30-kg bins and sent to partner NGOs across the city, who distribute it for us,” says the director of the NGO.

Mariwala spends a significant amount of time planning the menu because they must work with whatever ingredients arrive. “It’s not like we buy anything. We cook with what we get. Once, we had bubblegum syrup, so we made bubblegum halwa, and the kids absolutely loved it. If we get cucumbers or fruit, we make fruit salad or fruit chaat. I once got 2,000 kilos of cornflakes, so I made cornflakes bhel. For me, that creative part is fun and it’s even more fun knowing that someone is going to eat it and truly enjoy it. All our food is made with love,” she says.

Shubhlakshmi Dani, Graphic Designer, Whole Time Director at Shubhit Holdings Pvt Ltd., Founder, Geeta Seva Kitchen, shares, “Hunger is a fundamental issue, and unless a person’s basic need for food is met, we cannot expect them to truly thrive in any aspect of their lives. Anuja’s commitment to ensuring that people have access to healthy and nutritious meals—rather than simply fried or sugary options—is meaningful work. That is why her efforts to feed people are an essential contribution to society.”