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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Ele.me

KFC, Pizza Hut Test Contactless Delivery in Response to China’s Coronavirus

As China continues to grapple with the deadly coronavirus outbreak, some restaurant chains are taking steps to ensure food delivery operations can continue. Yum China, which operates thousands of KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants in China, is now using what it calls contactless delivery and pickup to safely get food from restaurants to customers without further spreading the deadly virus.

Yum posted videos to Chinese social media platforms Weibo and WeChat showing a delivery driver having their temperature taken, putting on a mask, and disinfecting their hands before heading out to make the delivery. Drivers are also required to disinfect both their hands and their delivery boxes after each delivery.

The food courier drops the order at pre-appointed spot outside the customer’s building then watches from a distance of at least 10 feet while the customer retrieves their order and goes back inside:

Yum China is also testing an in-store pickup version of this contactless delivery at some locations, where pickup racks have been installed inside. For both delivery and pickup, customers ordering via can now choose a “contactless” option when they order online. 

Chinese food delivery services Meituan and Ele.me are providing similar services. And it isn’t just restaurants peddling this contactless form of food delivery. Grocery stores — namely Alibaba’s Hema, JD affiliate Dada, and Meituan — are using contactless delivery for grocery orders, offering an in-app option for customers similar to that of Yum China. 

CNBC reports that as of last week in Beijing, roughly 20,000 people were delivering an average of over 400,000 orders daily from Meituan and Ele.me alone, but that the “logistical challenges,” such as couriers having to wait outside instead of delivering food directly to the customer’s door, have lowered the efficiency of delivery operations. However, the CDC points out that coronavirus getting spread from person to person usually happens “among close contacts (about 6 feet),” making the measures around contactless delivery necessary if food delivery is to continue.

Others are skipping the human element altogether and relying heavily on technology. A hotel in Hangzhou, China has been dispatching robots to deliver meals to quarantined guests.

Burger King, McDonald’s Join Ele.me’s Food Delivery Initiative to Help Coronavirus Workers

Chinese food delivery service Ele.me has launched an initiative to deliver meals to medical staff working in the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. The company has gathered 100 restaurants, both chains and local establishments, to get meals to hospitals in Wuhan, China, according to an article in the South China Morning Post. 

The Alibaba-owned service has gathered major QSRs like McDonald’s and Burger King along with local Wuhan restaurants to supply food delivery orders to staff at more than 10 hospitals in the city. The Post reported that an Ele.me rider “safely delivered the first order to a frontline medical staff on Sunday.” Meal delivery to doctors and nurses on the frontlines has continued since.

Previously, Ele.me had suspended meal delivery services to hospitals in order to prevent the spread of the deadly epidemic. But businesses around China, many of them tech companies, are now upping funds and resources to help medical staff fighting the virus, and the various initiatives have become something of a team effort in getting aid to workers on the frontlines in Wuhan.

At last check, more than 7,711 cases of coronavirus have been confirmed and 170 people have died. The World Health Organization is meeting today to decide whether coronavirus should be declared an international public health emergency.

Which brings us back to food and food tech. A number of companies stepping up to help are focused on getting food to both workers and those quarantined. Besides Ele.me, Meituan, another food delivery service, has set up a 200 million yuan fund to aid staff and is also providing free takeaway meals every day for hospital staff in Wuhan. Travel service Fliggy, which has been refunding flights, has pledged to supply medical staff in Wuhan with access to things like fresh produce from convenience stores, according to the South China Morning Post article. And as my college Chris Albrecht wrote yesterday, a hotel in Hangzhou, China has dispatched robots to bring meals to quarantined guests.

As Chris notes, the initiative at the Hangzhou hotel highlights “how robots can be used in situations that are hazardous to humans and help save lives (everyone needs to eat).” The same can be said of food delivery, which happens to be one of those sectors of food tech that’s really easy to hate on. It’s ethically questionable in some cases. It may not be sustainable or profitable.  Delivery fees suck. 

But food delivery, with its streamlined model and technical logistics, is also an easier, arguably safer way to get a daily necessity — a hot meal — to people fighting a deadly crisis. In providing meal services to workers in Wuhan, companies like Ele.me are hopefully sending a signal to restaurants and food delivery companies around the world to step up and do likewise, whether it’s in the event of this virus spreading or at some future point, in the face of a different crisis.