Food Delivery in Extreme Weather: The Other Side of Urban Convenience

The rain has been exceptionally heavy in the north this year, from summer downpours all the way through to the fine, lingering autumn drizzle. This episode of Food Talk begins with the rain we’ve had recently. We invited Yuyang, a former delivery rider who now works as an editor at Foodthink, to start from his article “The Business War in the Rain, a Delivery Rider’s Bitter Summer” and discuss the reality of food delivery in extreme weather.

In the programme, we hear more about the finer details of a delivery rider’s life: the real conditions riders face on rainy and scorching days – no “weather allowance”, and in fact a risk of being fined for not showing up to work. Those seemingly warm-hearted “Heat Allowance” schemes and “Summer Cool Campaign” promotions turn out to be nothing more than platforms using a cleverly designed “tiered incentive” mechanism to shift even more risk and labour pressure onto delivery riders.

In severe weather, delivery riders have no sick leave, no circuit breaker mechanism. Food delivery platforms are precisely sacrificing riders’ rights to foster consumer dependence on “cheap delivery”. The paradox that follows is this: when we discuss whether to order delivery on a stormy day, we always assume the rider bears the cost on behalf of the consumer, thereby pitting our interests against each other’s – but has the cost truly been transferred?

When offline wet markets and family-run shops are squeezed out by platforms and gradually disappear, we seem to be losing a more human, healthier way of eating and living. Yet under the pressure of hefty platform commissions, merchants produce cheap food with inadequate safety guarantees, while the various traffic accidents caused by delivery riders – these consequences may still boomerang back and land on every one of us. Do we still have a choice to change things?

In this conversation about storms, many questions seem vast and unanswerable. Perhaps the small but hopeful side is that we can still imagine together: is there another way to spend a rainy day? Taking an umbrella to buy fresh groceries, rummaging through the fridge, cooking a meal with family? After all, these tiny shifts may well be where reclaiming our own lives begins.

This Episode’s Guests

Tianle

Foodthink Founding Editor

Yuyang

Foodthink Editor

This Episode’s Hosts

Xiaojing

Food Talk host, focused on food culture and sustainable living