Urban food life, consumption behavior, and food culture.
In the comments on Foodthink’s previous warehouse-picker article, workers described the daily reality of 0.01-yuan piece-rate pay, −20 °C cold stores and management through fines; consumers challenged who exactly the three-minute time limit rushes for, and discussed actions such as off-peak ordering and ordering fewer heavy items.
Working part-time as a Picker at Xiaoxiang Supermarket: three minutes per order, pay based on “effective working hours”, and continuous sprinting between the sub-zero freezer and tall shelving units. Mis-picks and omitted items are inevitable structural problems under this speed regime.
The year grandmother opened the shop, customers still brought empty drink bottles to fill with loose soy sauce; now mother hands regulars their usual brand from memory, while the daughter far off in Wuxi returns each Chinese New Year for a few days as the stall’s “second-in-command”.
In 2025, Foodthink’s removed articles covered food-delivery rider labour, mouldy grain during North China’s autumn harvest, rural heating in Hebei and high-standard farmland — most were not “sensitive topics”, merely widely known facts. Reader comments are deleted faster and faster; the space for public discussion is narrowing.
This Chinese New Year, villagers in Wutong Village, Weiyuan, carried bamboo baskets to market before dawn, steamed rice over a wood-fired stove, and spent five hours on a dish of native crucian carp, pinching pea shoots for shao bai and meatball soup. Twenty rural days: humble ingredients, labour-intensive cooking.
Fishermen in Satun and Trang provinces treat the mangroves as a “larder”, running their own restaurant, processing seafood and offering eco-tourism – turning the community marine-management rights they fought for into a livelihood that feeds their families.
Foodthink and the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market present the New Year Recipe Collection. New Year Day Six: Yiyi Farm’s Red sour soup – stir-fry the aromatics, simmer into a pot of Sour soup hotpot, meats and vegetables alike.
Foodthink and the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market present their New Year Recipes from Day 2 to Day 7. The day-five radish sashimi needs only washing, no peeling, a thick cut and soy sauce — good produce, served simply, says it all.
This tofu comes from Xiucai Bean Workshop – stir-fry the yellow bean paste until fragrant, braise for three minutes, and it’s ready. This dish is one of the Spring Festival New Year’s recipes co-created by Foodthink and the Beijing Organic Farmers Market with six farmers.
Foodthink and the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market present “New Year’s Feast Recipes”, days two to seven — six farmers each cooking with their own produce. Huairou Snail Farm’s stir-fried chicken braises a free-range rooster in beer for two hours: when ingredients shine, the cooking does them justice.
