Wang Jingli

wangjingli0715@163.com

SHENZHEN 2020 Food Festival kicked off yesterday, as an attempt to give a boost to the catering industry after its hard times through the COVID-19 outbreak.

The festival, which will run to the end of April, was initiated by the Shenzhen Municipal Commerce Bureau and operated by Meituan, a popular online delivery platform in China.

At a news conference in a hotel in Futian District yesterday, Meituan staff said that consumer coupons worth 4-5 million yuan (US$571,000-US$714,000) will be given to customers in a form of red packets throughout the month, with which consumers can directly use as delivery fee when putting orders through Meituan.

Customers can get these red packets on the home page of the Meituan app on mobile phone. The company will also offer subsidies to restaurants and stores running businesses on Meituan.

In addition, Meituan will launch an event to select the top 10 favorite food brands and help to promote these brands.

“Different to previous food festivals, this festival aims to boost the catering industry that has been seriously affected by the viral outbreak since the Spring Festival holiday and to rebuild consumer confidence,” said Zhou Mingwu, vice director of the city’s commerce bureau.

At present, the amount of daily orders made on Meituan is about 600,000, which is around 90 percent of the number before the outbreak, according to Feng Menglong, who is in charge of Meituan’s business in Luohu District.

Feng says that they are hoping that the festival will help to raise the daily order volume by 30 percent.

It is said that a total of 36,000 stores have participated in this event.