I Was a Picker at a Fresh Grocery E-Commerce Platform: 30,000 Steps a Day, Three Mao per Item
On an ordinary day, you decide to cook a meal at home. You open the fresh grocery app on your phone, pick out your ingredients, and then, on a whim, add a few snacks and a 4.5-litre bottle of mineral water. The instant you pay, the promise “30-minute delivery” catches your eye in bold type, and you feel reassured—sure that your food will arrive within half an hour.
What you may not know, though, is that behind the convenience of “30-minute delivery” lies the frantic running of delivery riders and pickers. For pickers especially, “running” means exactly what it says: the moment you place your order, their feet must start moving, darting and manoeuvring between narrow, cramped shelves to pick the right items for the customer. Even lugging a nine-kilo bottle of mineral water does not slow their pace one bit.
Thirty thousand steps a day, twelve-hour shifts, three mao per item, one order every nine minutes—this is the real life of pickers in the corners of the city we never see.
This episode’s guest on Food Talk, He Siqi, is a social worker. This summer he spent a month working as a picker at JD 7FRESH, experiencing first-hand the labour rhythms under the Forward warehouse’s high-pressure system. It is a world that looks ordinary but is, in fact, intensely pressurised: a “Psychometric assessment” before you can even start; a PDA counting down every order in real time while you work; supervisors pushing you from behind surveillance screens, so that even a minute’s delay earns you a public name-and-shame; mistakes that mean fines, or being forced to “hand-copy the packing standards” just like a schoolchild.
Beyond that, the daily consumption of thousands of plastic bags and ice packs, the cold of the cold store, and the noise of the front of house—all are part of their everyday routine.
During that month, He Siqi truly understood what “algorithmic labour” means: the worker is merely a body extended from the system, squeezed dry bit by bit by time, data and efficiency. This invisible labour underpins the “30-minute delivery” we have grown so accustomed to. The algorithm demands that pickers perform as efficiently as machines, yet people are not machines. The frustration and anxiety bottled up on the job can only be borne in silence. Some stay for the social insurance; others leave quietly.
When convenience has become the norm, can we still see the people who live inside a countdown? In this episode, we talk about the people who keep the whole system running behind the “30-minute delivery” promise of fresh grocery e-commerce, and about how, within an “algorithmic” picking system, the human body and its dignity become just another component of efficiency.
This Episode’s Guest
He Siqi
A social worker who has long championed workers’ rights. He has done food deliveries and worked as a picker. Currently an independent content creator, he is dedicated to speaking up for workers—ensuring that overlooked voices are heard by more people.
This Episode’s Hosts
Yuyang
Foodthink editor, focused on labour issues in a mobile society.
Tianle
Founding editor of Foodthink and convener of the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market.
Timeline
01:27 Getting hired: stumbling into a picker’s role by accident when he’d expected to be a stock clerk—starting the job even requires a “Psychometric assessment”, and everything is harsher than he imagined
04:40 The punishing daily grind: 30,000 steps a day, 12–14-hour shifts, one order every nine minutes, three mao per item… Behind these figures lies the race pickers run daily between the warehouse and the cold store
18:33 Pressure and punishment: supervisors watching surveillance screens, rushing orders, naming and shaming; a single mistake can mean a fine or being forced to “hand-copy the packing standards”
26:22 The waste of thousands of plastic bags and ice packs every day—the environmental cost behind our convenient lives
29:57 Fellow pickers: a quick-witted 24-year-old picker and mother; a defiant post-2000s summer temp; and the exhausted “Order King”
34:11 People versus the system: front of house and back of house endlessly blame each other, and the tensions beneath the labour hierarchy are obscured by algorithms
43:12 Social insurance and belonging: can pickers put down roots in the city?
49:06 Labour from the consumer’s side: complaints, re-picks, and the loss of empathy
56:35 When we leave the market behind, what do we gain—and what do we lose?
The 100 People Who Feed Us
The rice in your bowl, the vegetables on your plate, every meal you order from your phone—all conceal a vast and complex real world behind them. To grasp the true contours of that world, Foodthink’s podcast Food Talk has launched the series “The 100 People Who Feed Us”. Following the vivid stories of 100 practitioners, it charts a career landscape of food and farming, laying bare the most authentic life experiences behind what we eat.
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Unless otherwise noted, all images are provided by this episode’s guest.
Podcast music: Banong
Produced by: Xiaojing
Edited by: Yuyang
Contact email: xiaojing@foodthink.cn