In brief
In China’s high‑speed food delivery market, authorities have moved to police ‘ghost kitchens’: restaurants that operate online only, outsourcing orders to third‑party vendors in a bid to cut costs and undercut rivals. The crackdown has led to the removal of thousands of fake listings, the seizure of forged licences, and the imposition of licence verification for app‑based sellers. Recent fines and new AI‑driven monitoring efforts aim to protect consumers and stabilize the industry.
Chinese regulators have stepped into the cut‑throat food‑delivery arena to hunt down a growing menace: ‘ghost kitchens’—spurious restaurants that appear on popular apps but do not exist in real life.
Through a sweeping investigation, authorities uncovered that these outlets outsource orders to third‑party couriers across multiple platforms, enabling merchants to slash prices and maximize profits at the cost of food safety. The discovery came after a consumer in Beijing complained about a cake topped with inedible flowers, prompting a probe that revealed a chain with no physical stores yet listed nearly 380 times across major e‑commerce sites.
Statistics from Xinhua show that two order‑transfer platforms processed 3.6 million cake orders and that 67,000 dust‑half‑in‑the‑air ‘ghost shops’ operate on seven biggest food‑delivery apps, forming an illegal supply chain through collusion.
Under the new enforcement, food‑delivery apps must verify restaurant licences and addresses, while merchants need to match online listings with physical businesses and indicate whether dine‑in service is available. This measure was introduced last week to curb the rampant fraud.
Last year’s price war among the likes of Meituan, Pinduoduo and JD.com saw a race to the bottom and led the State Administration for Market Regulation to fine seven e‑commerce platforms a total of 3.6 billion yuan (£400 million), citing violations linked to ghost kitchens.
In response, some vendors have turned to transparency: Hangzhou has seen more than 20 stalls installing “transparent kitchens” that broadcast live cooking sessions, while the Anhui province partnership with Meituan, Taobao and JD.com introduces AI kitchen monitoring and rewards delivery riders for reporting illegal outlets.
