The Akshaya Patra Foundation is a non-profit organisation in India that operates a school lunch programme. The organisation was established in 2000. It aims to counter classroom hunger and aid in education of children. It feeds 18,00,907 children every day across India. The food distributed by Akshaya Patra is perceived to be "hygienic, nutritious and delicious".
The Akshaya Patra kitchens produce about 350 kilograms of organic waste each day. In an effort to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill, the foundation has set up biogas plants in some of its kitchens. This initiative started with the centralized kitchens at Bellary and Vasanthapura on Earth Day 2016 and now extends to six kitchens across the country. The biogas plants, with a capacity to process 1 tonne per day of organic waste, generate 120 to 150 m3 of biogas the equivalent of 30 kilograms of LPG. This gas is consumed in the kitchen's cooking operations and saves the foundation INR 38,500 per month. This translates to savings of about 10% in total energy consumption required for cooking. Another green initiative of the foundation is the installation of solar photovoltaic systems at some of its kitchens. Based on the weather these systems produce 80-100 units of electricity per day and this power's the facility's daytime energy requirement e.g. the Bengaluru plant generates 10 kW of power and this is entirely consumed by the facility, whereas the Surat plant generates 12 kW of power with some of the surplus power being fed back to the grid for a credit. The foundation is open to knowledge sharing in helping other entities achieve their environmental goals. Shridhar Venkat, CEO Akshaya Patra has gone on record to say:
The blueprints and processes of our waste management and clean energy generation systems are available to whomsoever who asks for it.
Other programmes
Certain that the primary cause of Akshaya Patra is to actually complement the creation of Srila Prabhupada by implementation of the mid-day meal programme. After the COVID-19 lockdown was announced, Akshaypatra undertook a massive food program to feed the migrant workers and any one who is in need for food. They provided cooked food as well as dry grocery kits
Akshaya Patra USA
Akshaya Patra USA exceeded its fundraising goal of $3.2m for 2012 by raising $5.6m. This included a generous grant of $2m by Caterpillar Foundation for building a kitchen in Uttar Pradesh, India.
