Onthe heads and bicycle racks of an army of delivery men, more than200,000 shiny tiffin boxes course like quicksilver through the grottystreets of Mumbai each day.

Like clockwork, these stackable metal pots arrive at the desks of the city’s hungry office workers at 12:45 pm precisely.

Considered the world’s most ingenious meal distribution system – a recent Forbesmagazine survey found that only one in six million deliveries ismisplaced – the century-old tiffin lunch delivery network is integralto the cultural life of Mumbai.

And now, from Boston to Burnaby and from Calgary toCambridge, the tiffin is taking off across North America, with MetroVancouver leading the way.

On Granville Island, Curry 2 U proprietor Shaffeen Jamal [first image below] says the tiffin trend is going gangbusters.

“When I first started I was maybe doing 50 a week,” he says. “Now I’m doing 1,250.”

At the popular South India restaurant Chutney Villaon Broadway at Main, Vancouver restaurateur Chindi Varadarajulu [image 2 below] says she’s just ordered in another shipment of tiffin carriers to keep up with demand.

“You’re sick of the finger food, you’re sick of thepizzas and the sandwiches, this is a healthy – and tasty – option,”says Varadarajulu, who now offers lunchtime delivery and corporate catering a la tiffin.

“A lot of customers will buy a tiffin for theirleftovers. Others will come in just to buy the empty containers,” sheadds. “I’ve had to order another 250 from India they’re so popular.”

In Calgary, Aly Ramji has named his restaurant after the cylindrical aluminum containers. Tiffin Curry and Roti House hasj ust doubled its presence in the city on the strength of its lunchtime Tiffin Club, with a food court outlet at Mount Royal College expanding on the original restaurant on 28 Street SE.

“It’s picked up incredibly,” says Ramji, originallyfrom Vancouver. “Our tiffins are pretty unique too, they come in athermos container – being from Calgary, the winters are cold here andwe want your food to be hot!”

Thetiffin is a remarkably simple concept. Originating with the British Rajin 19th Century India – the word ‘tiffing’ in antique English means toeat between meals – the tiffin typically comprises three or fourseparate hot and cold insulated compartments.

In India, they are also called dabbas, and aredelivered every lunch hour by some 5,000 dabbawallahs (literally, boxcarriers) in Mumbai alone.

Typically, they contain rice in one compartment, Dalor curry in another, and other items in the third or fourth tiers suchas naan, vegetables or a dessert.

Just this month, the tiffin arrived in the U.S.,with a leading restaurant chain specialising in Indian cuisinelaunching ‘Tiffin Meals,’ a new home and office meal delivery servicein Boston and Cambridge.

With a click of a mouse, patrons now can orderquality, home-style Indian food every day for lunch, the Boston basedOne World Cuisine restaurant chain said while launching the servicepatterned on Mumbai’s dabbawallah carriers.

“The launch of Tiffin Meals allows us to betterserve our customers, whether in our restaurants, their homes or theiroffices,” said Amrik Pabla, president of the One World Cuisine group.

But unlike his counterparts in Metro Vancouver, whorefill their customers cleaned tiffins at a considerable discount,Pabla serves up his Indian food in disposable, microwavable plasticcontainers.

Varadarajulu firmly believes that it is the “greenfactor” of the reusable aluminum tiffin carriers that will firmlyentrench the tiffin trend here.

“Thebiggest reason it will take off is the enviromental reason, especiallyin Vancouver,” she says. “We recently catered to a group of 75 at agovernment office. Can you imagine, if they weren’t ordering thetiffins, these people would have had three plastic containers each –that’s a lot of plastic.”

Both Ramji and Jamal concur.

“We draw a lot of people who want to beenvironmentally friendly and are aware of the waste that’s involved inplastic lunch containers,” says Ramji, who has a degree inenvironmental sciences and has “always been conscious of the problemswe’re facing.”

Adds Jamal: “I used to put 100,000 foam plates intothe landfill every year. Now, I’ve put in a dishwasher than cost me3,000 bucks and that is it.

“The idea is I want you to think green, be moreresponsible, and also buy your loyalty by asking you to come back torefill your tiffin.”

Varadarajulu says she is not surprised the time-honoured tiffin is making a mighty comeback.