Platform economies, food delivery workers, and urban consumption behavior.
Foodthink Says In January this year, a Beijing resident ordered fresh lilies via Hema, but mistakenly received toxic narcissus bulbs instead, leading to the hospitalisation of their 71-year-old mother and 12-year-old son after they consumed them. Addressing the mix-up, Hema explained that during the picking process, a packer had mistakenly…
On 4 April last year, Foodthink published a “collection of deleted articles”. Since then, each time a piece was taken down, the team would console themselves with an inside joke: “We’ve already got another ‘404ed 404’ for next year.” But the 404s over the past two years aren’t entirely the…
Looking back at 2025, what news about food and agriculture left the deepest impression on you? Was it the struggle to harvest crops amidst the relentless rains of North China, the delivery platform wars, the heated debates over pre-prepared meals that nearly sparked violence, or…? Over the past year, Foodthink,…
I. A “Failed” Strike On the last day of 2025, more than 40,000 food delivery riders across India staged a ‘failed’ strike. It is considered a failure because the strike did not achieve its initial objective. Indian delivery riders hoped that by halting work during the order surge on New…
On an ordinary day, you decide to cook a meal at home. You open your grocery delivery app, select your ingredients, and on a whim add a few snacks and a 4.5-litre bulk water bottle. Just as you tap to pay, the bold promise of “Delivery in 30 Minutes” catches…
The north has seen remarkably heavy rainfall this year, stretching from the torrential summer downpours right through to the lingering autumn drizzle. For this episode of *Food Talk*, we’ll begin by talking about those recent rains. We’ve invited Yu Yang, a former delivery rider who now works as an editor…
The sweltering summer is about to end, but the autumn rains may prove just as chilling. This summer has been far from typical. Extreme rainfall and scorching heatwaves have swept across the country in quick succession. Surface temperatures in Shaanxi peaked at a staggering 72.9°C. Harbin, deep in the northeast,…
Foodthink’s Take Since early June, a video titled “From a City Besieged by Waste to a Shortage of Trash to Burn: China’s Speed Leaves the West Stunned” has spread rapidly online. The prospect of shovelling unsightly waste into an incinerator to burn it all away, then harnessing the released energy…
Not long ago, Nature Cities published an article detailing how urban residents in China shift the risks of heat exposure onto food delivery riders simply by ordering takeaway. The logic is straightforward enough, but when torrential rain or scorching heatwaves strike, the delivery rider is reduced to little more than…
From the media dispute between JD.com and Meituan over delivery riders’ social insurance in April, to the new regulations mandating compulsory contributions from 1 September, the working conditions of these riders have increasingly drawn public attention. Yet for many of them, social insurance remains a distant concept, overshadowed by the…
