How to Find Safe Produce: Ten Years’ Experience from Two Mothers | Food Talk Vol. 49
During the first decade of the 21st century, triggered by a series of food safety crises, a group of Chinese consumers began exploring better agricultural practices and ingredients. Across the country, the first wave of farmers dedicated to organic cultivation gradually emerged.
Cao Xiaohong, a guest in this episode, was one of them. In 2008, driven by her child’s health needs, she began searching for safer ingredients. At the time, when she started shopping on the organic platform “Wotu Gongfang”, there were no mini-programs for ordering, no WeChat groups, and courier services were underdeveloped; buying produce often relied on emails and cash payments. While the organic movement was largely taking root in big cities, Xiaohong, living in a small town in Hunan, slowly built her own small group-buying circle. She coordinated with farmers across different regions while encouraging local mothers to “buy along with her”. To this day, she remains an active member of consumer communities.
Our other guest, Xiao Yunsheng from the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market, also reflects on his journey from being a consumer to entering the produce business. Through over a decade of selling at the farmers’ market, he has witnessed numerous changes and challenges, and worked with fellow organic farmers nationwide to maintain a dinner table that truly stands up to scrutiny.
Looking back, it was a group of consumers—people with a deep understanding of food, high standards, passion, and the ability to organise—who changed the public’s understanding of agriculture and food, building a bridge between production and consumption. Now that commercial models like livestreaming and drop-shipping have entered the fray, can we still establish the same level of mutual trust as those consumers did years ago?
Xiaohong also shares her philosophy on life through food: how to maintain a stress-free approach to eating, how to choose produce at a wet market, and her enviable ideal of a life lived in harmony with nature—practising farming alongside her parents to truly understand food and the natural world. If you worry about grocery shopping for your family, or simply want to eat with more peace of mind, this episode is for you.
This Episode’s Guests
Cao Xiaohong
A native of Chenzhou, Hunan Province, she grew up in the mountains. Her ancestors’ records in the family genealogy were all farmers, until her generation, when she and her siblings settled in the city. As an educator and a parent, she began buying organic ingredients from Wotu Gongfang in 2008, embarking on a journey of deep exploration into the relationship between food, land, and nature.
Xiao Yunsheng
A former journalist and amateur farmer who has spent ten years selling produce at the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market.
This Episode’s Host
Wang Hao
An editor at Foodthink, and a consumer who began engaging with ecological produce after the pandemic.
Timeline
00:45 First encounter with the organic circle: 2008, before WeChat, when everything relied on emails and bonds of trust.
05:56 A girl who “escaped” the countryside: why is it necessary to rediscover the land as an adult?
17:01 The rise of the “mummy groups”: how grocery shopping can build deep friendships. The group leader takes the lead, and the members follow with total trust—eco-farming friends across the country sustaining the dinner tables of a group of mothers.
20:46 Lessons from her parents’ vegetable patch: one ear of corn, five little worms—can you accept that?
23:43 From “die-hard organic” to “laid-back procurement”: as the children grow and the pace of life changes, eating becomes less of a race for perfection.
25:24 Returning to the local: visiting the wet market as a form of spiritual practice. How to identify local vegetables grown by the elderly ladies in their own gardens?
37:52 Why is consumer trust not stronger than before in the era of livestreaming and express delivery?
48:42 The ideal: returning to the original rhythm of life—three meals, four seasons, labour and awareness.
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Music: Ba Nong
Produced by: Xiaojing
Edited by: Wang Hao
Contact email: xiaojing@foodthink.cn