Urban food life, consumption behavior, and food culture.
Social worker He Siqi spent a month as a Forward warehouse picker at JD 7FRESH, experiencing PDA countdowns, surveillance-driven pressure and per-order fines—and seeing how the people behind “30-minute delivery” are squeezed dry bit by bit by algorithmic rhythm.
In the rain, riders have no weather allowance – just fines for not showing up, no sick leave, no circuit breaker. Former rider and Foodthink editor Yuyang, with host Xiaojing, discuss the risks shifted behind convenience, and how costs boomerang on everyone as wet markets and family-run shops vanish.
Foodthink collated reader comments under articles on delivery riders’ struggles in severe weather. The debate far exceeds the “order or don’t” binary: do riders want earnings or dignity, how responsibility splits between consumers and platforms, and whether Platform gig workers remain an escape route for ordinary people.
Videos of Zhejiang and Shanghai incineration plants “competing for waste” across provinces and municipalities went viral. But waste management advocates point out that overcapacity is the reality – legally mandated dioxin data, tested only once a year, is far from “real-time monitoring”.
Amid Beijing’s torrential rains and heatwaves this summer, Meituan, Ele.me and JD riders had feet soaked raw, suffered heat stroke and rear-end collisions – yet attendance bonus and late-delivery penalties still forced them to run orders in the rain.
At Mondeggi commons, over 450 members collectively farm 1,800 mu of land and deliberate democratically; Genuino Clandestino uses independent certification to bypass official procedures. These communities extend agroecology from a cultivation technique into collective action fighting for land and food sovereignty.
Riders eat just twice a day, pushing through peak delivery hours on biscuits and flatbread snacks. Medical studies across multiple countries show that the dietary imbalance and chronic stress wrought by intense delivery work are driving up gig workers’ risk of depression, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Following the viral “not enough waste to burn” video, calls to “throw more waste, forget sorting” emerged. Mao Da of the zero waste public welfare organisation and Sun Jinghua of Friends of Nature point out that excess incineration capacity exposes the lack of upstream reduction and sorting.
In a Jing’an District McDonald’s, part-time pay is 19 yuan an hour — just two yuan more after 1,000 hours. Five stations, each worker locked to their post; rainy-day delivery surges send riders and staff unraveling together. The assembly line cuts apart workers’ shared lives.
In an exclusive interview with Foodthink at the 3rd International Agrobiodiversity Congress, veteran BBC journalist Dan Saladino moves from Sichuan Red-Mouth Glutinous Rice to the revival of British farmhouse cheese and the Perry pear, discussing how to safeguard diversity in the industrial food system.
