Food delivery in China is a $46bn business
recent peak of covid-19 cases in China, large metal shelving-units appeared at entrances to residential compounds across Shanghai. Outsiders were not allowed in. But somewhere was needed to hold the myriad packages ordered online by the millions of residents who were staying at home. The shelves groaned under the weight of disinfectant and vitamin tablets, sacks of rice and flour, cooking oil and vegetables.
After the novel coronavirus hit, their services became a lifeline. When officials told firms to stay shut, they allowed exceptions for “essential” services, including those delivering cooked food and groceries. Wary of eating meals prepared by others, many people turned to online supermarkets. Sales of dumpling wrappers and sauces grew more than sevenfold on Meituan’s grocery service—even as takeout orders more than halved, as the giant reported in a downbeat first-quarter forecast.
For migrants from the countryside, the job is an unusually easy ticket to city life. Factory workers must have a skill, and often a home-town peer to vouch for them. But some riders are hired as soon as they upload copies of an identity card and health certificate to an app. The pay is usually better than on an assembly line.
In recent years gig jobs have given workers a cushion, says Ji Wenwen of the China University of Labour Relations. In Hegang, a coal town by the Amur river on the Russian border, a tenth of takeaway riders were once miners. One of them is Luo Qiong, who makes twice as much with Ele.me as he did down the pit. “I earn more than local civil servants,” he says proudly.
Among the army’s recruits is a lanky 22-year-old in a baggy Ele.me jacket who prefers to be identified only by his surname, Liu. He says that, in his distant home-town near the eastern city of Suqian, he would need to “work as long as the machines” in order to earn as much as he does in Shanghai. He now puts aside 5,000 yuan a month. But he works six days a week, ten hours a day, even in the grimmest weather. Mr Liu says he jumps red lights every day to avoid late-delivery penalties.
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