About a month ago, MYA received a phone call from The Dawoodi Bohras community of London, based at Husaini Masjid in Northolt.
We were asked if we could support the design and delivery of a temporary kitchen, in a field, built by a team of community volunteers, make it legally compliant and ready to serve in 13 days? A simple brief, then.
Just the small matter of feeding thousands of people safely, fast, with traditional cooking methods, in a temporary environment, with full food safety scrutiny. Not for the faint-hearted, or frankly, even the mildly anxious.
MYA has worked with the Husaini Masjid team for four years. We were privileged to support the same celebration back in 2022. This work has never been purely transactional. It’s a collaboration built on trust, with a shared purpose, and a common determination to get it right.
The scale was huge:
13,000 meals were served each day (traditional dining for the community)
750m² of temporary kitchen space built inside a marquee
Over 2 tonnes of fresh produce, meat, and dry goods were delivered every day
45,000+ litres of water used daily for cooking, high-volume sanitization, and drinking
Commercial-grade gas infrastructure supporting 78 stock pots and 12 serveries
Over 1,000 volunteers supported the food delivery and safety management
As subject matter experts, MYA shared their knowledge while the community’s volunteer team constructed the kitchen, installed specialised drainage and ventilation, and created the working conditions needed to deliver traditional cooking at scale.
As the project moved from design into implementation, the same attitude was needed again. Food safety teams had travelled from across the world. Many were qualified in their own jurisdictions but they needed training and support to meet UK requirements. The same was true of the chefs, who were working across cultures, methods, and legal frameworks.
From day one, MYA and the mosque leadership, Mohsin Nurbhai, set a high bar for food safety. This mattered. But what made the difference wasn’t process alone.
It was attitude. Pace, price, and performance were all important. But underneath all of this was something more powerful: people who wanted the event to be a success and who were willing to learn, adapt, and work together with focus and humility.
Skills can be learned. Systems can be built. Compliance can be taught. But the right attitude along with the right expertise is what makes these things possible. Working in partnership with the Husaini Masjid team meant much more could be achieved than would usually be possible within a conventional transactional business model. Personal investment, trust, drive, and determination resulted in a clean bill of health from Ealing Council.
Day ten, and the event concluded successfully, a testament to rigorous planning and a resilient team.
There will be lessons learned, as there always are. But one lesson is already clear: when expertise meets purpose, and when both sides are genuinely invested in the outcome, extraordinary things can happen very quickly.
Our thanks to the leadership team, the food safety teams, the chefs, the volunteers, and everyone within the Dawoodi Bohra community who made this possible.
This was not just a kitchen project.
It was collaboration under pressure, delivered with faith, discipline, and purpose.