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March 22, 2016

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Home » City specials » Hangzhou

Online food delivery: convenience and risk

By Wu Huixin | March 22, 2016, Tuesday | Print Edition

NEARLY 200 Hangzhou restaurants were dropped from the Shanghai-based ele.me website after a China Central TV investigative program provoked outcry in a report claiming that some eateries registered on the food-delivery platform were unlicensed, unsanitary and untruthful.

Food safety is a persistent concern among the Chinese public, after several nationwide scandals rocked consumer confidence.

Hangzhou’s food safety watchdog recently made unannounced inspections on restaurants in the Xiasha area, a university area rife for takeaway food. The swoop found six restaurants failed to meet sanitation regulations and two were unlicensed.

“One of the kitchens looked like a warehouse,” according to the Market and Quality Supervision Commission. “It posted two different licenses online, one on meituan.com and one on ele.me. Those websites didn’t carry out due diligence on registrations.”

Many students, office workers and laborers with little time to spare for meals have come to rely on ordering food online with smartphones.

“My roommates are getting lazier and lazier,” said Chen Yan, a student of the Zhejiang Business Technology Institute in Xiasha. “They are even too lazy to walk to the canteen for meals. So they order takeaway food and have it brought into the dormitory.”

Many eateries that deliver meals via online orders are housed in apartments because commercial rents are high. These makeshift kitchens are often packed with stoves and cooking paraphernalia, jammed amid tangles of unsafe wiring extending electrical outlets.

Zhang Xuhao, an executive with ele.me, wrote an email to employees of the website acknowledging “dereliction of duty” on food-safety management, according to a document published online.

He said the site would remove unlicensed restaurants and upgrade its license review process. A team of 100 people was dispatched to check on registered restaurants across the country. Almost 200 Hangzhou eateries were disqualified and told they won’t be readmitted to the site until they produce valid licenses.

A day before CCTV aired its exposé, the Hangzhou TV program “1818 Golden Eyes” reported that a customer found an earthworm in a salad she ordered online from a restaurant promising fresh, organic food.

According to the third-party online payment platform Alipay, Hangzhou residents are among China’s biggest consumers of takeaway food.

Online food-delivery sites like ele.me, Baidu, Meituan and Koubeiwaimai are popular with university students. But beginning this year, some universities in Zhejiang Province are banning food delivery vans from entering campuses because of concerns about food safety.

In the Xiasha area, the Zhejiang Business Technology Institute initiated a ban on such deliveries, effective this month.

“Some of them run businesses without licenses, so we are concerned about health risks to students,” the college said in a statement. “We respect people’s right to choose what they eat, but safety comes first.”

Student Chen said he welcomes the ban. “Since it came into effect, our dormitory no longer is filled with oily odors,” he said.

However, not all of the students support the school’s decision.

“The canteen provides only a few of dishes, which are usually unappetizing,” said student Xu Qiangian. “And sometimes I have to rely on takeaways if I miss out on canteen hours for some reason.”

Some students at the college have suggested that licensed takeaways eateries be allowed to operate in the campus canteen.

Unsanitary and unlicensed restaurants aren’t limited to the Internet, but for those operating online, it’s easier to hide the true nature of their kitchen facilities from the eyes of consumers.

Several unlicensed restaurants operating in the Jiulianzhuang residential complex and on Sixin Lane in Hangzhou had photos of spotless kitchens online. In reality, the facilities uncovered by a media investigation found cramped, dirty facilities. It also found that food ordered online from different restaurants all came from the same kitchen.

Sixin Lane is now undergoing rejuvenation into a historic street, and its unlicensed eateries have been shuttered. But Jiulianzhuang continues to be a site for unlicensed restaurants, according to reports.

Hangzhou


 

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