BEIJING, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Strolling down the streets of almost any city in China, one is sure to encounter a familiar sight: electric bike riders in bright yellow or blue uniforms, weaving through cars and pedestrians with bags of meals strapped to their vehicles.
They are delivery workers, the backbone of China's new urban life and the world's largest online food delivery market -- a multi-billion-dollar industry that has evolved from a niche service to transform how millions of people work and dine.
A glance at the statistics tells of staggering growth. China's online food delivery industry began in 2008 when a group of college students in Shanghai launched the service on campus. By 2023, 545 million Chinese had ordered food online, and that number continues to rise.
Today, 56,000 online food orders are delivered every minute in China. According to a survey from data analysis provider iiMedia Research last year, more than 30 percent of consumers have ordered food delivery 5 to 10 times a week.
From student dormitories to corporate offices, hundreds of millions of consumers simply tap a few buttons on smartphones and wait as meals are delivered to their doorsteps. China's food delivery services have covered over 2,000 counties across the country and are even making their way overseas.
"With food delivery continuing to penetrate more remote counties and townships, the market is likely to maintain steady growth," said Shi Xiaoming, president of the food delivery committee of the China Hospitality Association.
RESHAPING BUSINESS LANDSCAPE
The rise of food delivery in China goes far beyond satisfying appetites. Valued at around 1.2 trillion yuan (about 167 billion U.S. dollars), more than the total GDP of Kuwait in 2023, the market has touched many aspects of the economy, from e-commerce giants and restaurant owners to gig workers navigating traffic to ensure timely deliveries.
Guo Xiaofan, a seafood store owner in north China's Tianjin with over 30 years in the business, said that since the launch of the intra-city express delivery service, orders have been steadily increasing. "During peak seasons, our online sales could top 3 million yuan in a month," he told Xinhua.
Delivery service has expanded both the time and location for food consumption, according to Li Jiwei, deputy dean of a research institute under Meituan, a Chinese food delivery giant. The company stated in a 2021 report that over 80 percent of small catering businesses have seen higher incomes since launching online delivery services.
In 2023, online catering sales increased by 29.1 percent year on year, and its share in the total catering service consumption reached 22.2 percent, according to data from the commerce ministry.
"Food delivery has evolved into an ecosystem that covers restaurants, packaging companies, raw material suppliers, third-party operators, shared transportation and more," said Shi from the China Hospitality Association.
The booming industry has not only created millions of jobs but also contributed to a more flexible employment system. By 2023, over 10 million people in China had taken on the role of instant delivery riders.
For 27-year-old Wang Yuanyuan, a Meituan rider from Anhui Province, the biggest attraction of the delivery job is its flexibility. "For me, delivering food feels like taking a gap period," he said.
Currently, over 70 percent of food delivery riders work part-time. Due to the low entry barriers and fair pay, many people like Wang take on food delivery gigs to earn money while searching for other job opportunities.
"In a certain way, the food delivery platforms are like an employment buffer," said Sun Ping, an associate researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who considers food delivery and similar jobs as "transitional labor."
Transitional jobs can also lead to lasting change. A 2019 Meituan report revealed that the company had employed 257,000 riders from China's then-impoverished population, with more than 98 percent of them rising out of poverty.
"Just think that it provides so many people with jobs and a way to earn money -- this alone makes a remarkable business," said Gu, a female rider who has been on the job for three years.
TECH-DRIVEN BOOM
While food delivery is gaining traction globally, why has China, rather than other countries, experienced such a dramatic market boom? At the heart of this trend lies a decade-long shift toward a consumer-driven economy, increasingly reliant on digital technologies, as well as the abundance of human resources in one of the world's most populous countries.
From 2013 to 2023, China's economy advanced at an average annual growth rate of 6.1 percent, and consumption overtook investment and trade to become a major growth engine. Along with this expansion, the country's per capita disposable income more than doubled.
"Stable growth and adjustment in development momentum are important support for the rapid growth of the food delivery industry," said Li from Meituan.
It was also a decade of rapid urbanization. China's urbanization rate increased from 53.1 percent in 2012 to 66.16 percent in 2023. The expanding urban population gave rise to workforces in the cities which in turn created a huge demand for quick and convenient meals.
"The growth of food delivery services has closely mirrored the progress of urbanization," said Shi, noting that food delivery has helped bridge the gap between urban and rural areas.
Technological advancements have been key to this transformation. The rapid development of mobile networks, payment systems and logistics has enabled seamless coordination between riders, restaurants and consumers.
In 2023, the scale of China's digital economy reached 53.9 trillion yuan, accounting for 42.8 percent of the GDP, a meteoric rise from 11.2 trillion yuan in 2012. The country's 5G mobile phone subscriptions exceeded one billion by the end of November 2024.
"While it may appear to be a byproduct of the restaurant sector, food delivery is actually a native of the internet and has always been at the forefront of digitalization since its very birth," Shi told media in November.
As new technologies continue to emerge, food delivery has kept evolving, giving rise to innovative business models such as unmanned delivery and smart scheduling. Last month, Meituan expanded its drone delivery service overseas, launching operations in Dubai.
REGULATORY EVOLUTION
With the economy continuing to become technology and consumption-driven, Chinese regulators are undergoing their own evolution to tackle the challenges that come along with the new forms of businesses and employment.
For the food delivery industry, given its growth pace and size, both regulators and platforms are tasked with navigating the balance between consumer convenience and the costs of convenience.
While consumers today expect their meals delivered as early as possible, delivery workers are racing against the clock to meet ever-tightening deadlines set by algorithms, or the "brains" of systems that map out the fastest routes and issue penalties for delays.
"Thirty minutes is barely enough to complete a single order," said Gu, the veteran rider, referring to the typical delivery time limit set by the platform she works for. She added that as more riders join the pool, earnings per order have been steadily declining.
A 2021 survey of 343 riders revealed that nearly 20 percent of them worked over 12 hours a day. More than 88 percent admitted they would violate traffic rules in order to deliver orders on time.
It was also in 2021 that Chinese authorities started rolling out rules to protect their labor rights, pushing platforms to guarantee gig workers minimum wage, insurance and workplace safety.
"The key to protecting the rights of delivery riders is addressing the incompatibility between platform-based employment and existing laws and regulations," said Huang Caihua, director of Beijing Jinwen Law Firm.
In November of last year, Chinese authorities urged online platforms to review their algorithms and rectify any practices that may exploit delivery workers.
In response to this regulatory push, Meituan announced in December that it would enhance algorithm transparency, phase out penalties for missed delivery deadlines, and replace them with positive incentives by the end of 2025.
Under a pilot program in seven provincial regions launched by China's human resources ministry in 2022, over 10 million people in new occupations including delivery workers have been brought under the coverage of occupational injury insurance.
Qi Jianzhong, a food delivery worker in Nanjing who broke his bones on the job over a year ago, said the insurance not only covered nearly 90 percent of his medical expenses but also provided him with 41,900 yuan in injury compensation.
"With the insurance, I feel much more at ease on the job now, otherwise I wouldn't know who I should ask for help once I got injured," said Qi, who returned to work after four months of recovery. ■
