Fresh food delivery service booms amid epidemic

Citizens' demand for fresh food delivery has surged recently during the novel coronavirus outbreak in China, according to a report Wednesday from Xinhua News Agency.

"Everyone avoids going out and prefers to buy vegetables on their mobile phones and choose delivery service because of the epidemic," said Zhang Yu, a person in charge at Shanghai-based, fresh produce e-commerce platform Dingdong Maicai, who was quoted in the report.

"Now we have more than 1,000 orders a day, compared with less than 700 orders in the same period in the past. The order amount has also increased sharply, with each order surpassing 100 yuan ($14.34) generally, which has nearly doubled compared to 60 to 70 yuan an order in the past," Zhang said.

JD Fresh, Chinese e-commerce giant JD's fresh food platform, also has seen surging orders. From lunar New Year's Eve to the ninth day of the first lunar month, its sales increased by 215 percent year-on-year, and more than 15,000 tons of fresh produce were sold across the country, according to the report.

Hema Fresh, a fresh food chain backed by Alibaba, employed over 500 staff members from catering enterprises in cities like Shanghai, Beijing and Hangzhou, to ease the shortage of hands due to booming orders.

At the same time, e-commerce platforms have taken measures to ensure the health of delivery staff members and customers.

"Our company gave me 10 masks yesterday, and we are required to take our temperature before the start of work every day," Zhou Hongbing, a deliveryman quoted in the report.

E-commerce companies and fast food restaurants, including Meituan, Dingdong Maicai, KFC and McDonald's, have launched "contactless delivery" service. When ordering food, consumers can choose the contactless service through apps on their mobile phones, agreeing to place the meal they have ordered in a designated location to minimize contact, ensuring both sides' health.

Smart delivery lockers are another application for contactless delivery, which provide a more secure delivery service and improve efficiency, said deliveryman Mei Zhiqiang, who was quoted in the report.

"Last year, I delivered about 300 orders per day. It was so hard to take each package door-to-door for signing," Mei said.