Rebel Foods, the Mumbai-based cloud kitchen startup, on Tuesday announced its employee focussed initiative, wherein it has insured over 4,200 kitchen and store employees with individual life insurance worth Rs 10 lakh per year.

The policies — to be provided by IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company — will protect the employees while giving financial security to their family members against any unforeseen situation. The life insurance comes along with an accident and health cover.

Speaking about the initiative, Raghav Joshi, Co-founder and CEO - India Business Unit, Rebel Foods, said,

“Any and every profession involves some risk, whether it is delivering food, working on a desk, or running a company. We, at Rebel Foods, are a people-first organisation, owing to which we have launched this insurance programme to provide security for all our kitchen and store staff, permanent or part-time."

The programme is backed by Rebel Foods, and no premium will be charged from the employees. With this initiative, the startup is ensuring that all the employees are free of worry as they step into their place of work each day.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Rebel Foods have introduced various initiatives around well-being, safety, and security for its employees, including yoga classes for members across the board for physical and mental wellbeing. It has also started employee engagement activities, including honouring its chefs on World Chef Day.

In another development, the foodtech startup has started an initiative by the name ‘give sure’ to serve meals to migrant workers, slum dwellers, and daily wage earners who lost their jobs during the lockdown.

This non-profit food drive has been backed by venture capital firms like Sequoia Capital and Lightbox Venture Partners.

Rebel Foods has partnered with NGOs like Annapurna Movement for Mumbai, CHORD for Hyderabad, Rotary for Bengaluru, and Food Bank for Chennai, to kickstart this initiative across different cities in India.

The freshly prepared meals are picked up by NGO partners or the state government bodies, and distributed and consumed within its shelf-life of three hours. The partners also ensure that the meals are distributed safely while adhering to hygiene protocols.