Meituan launches "Safe Takeaway" with ten measures to comprehensively upgrade the food safety governance system for takeout

Meituan (03690.HK) released the "Safe Delivery" ten measures, comprehensively upgrading the food safety governance system for delivery services. It will further deepen the three aspects of "merchant access, transparent operations, and multi-party governance" to build a safety defense line for safe delivery.

The ten measures specifically include: penetrating verification of merchant licenses and other data with regulatory oversight; "one-shot" submission of complete store videos by merchants for cross-verification, with the platform combining offline inspections and consumer reviews for cross-validation; strict control over real offline inspections; expanding the coverage of live broadcasts from merchants' kitchens to provide food safety support for small and medium-sized businesses; establishing a "food safety transparency window" for merchants, allowing consumers to check food safety information such as dine-in and open kitchens on the merchant's store page; AI online inspections with manual offline verification; setting up special rewards to encourage delivery personnel to participate in food safety governance; widely inviting consumers to participate in discussions on food safety standards; continuously updating and reporting food safety clues to support online collaboration; and cracking down on fake licenses and the black and gray market.

The State Administration for Market Regulation previously imposed administrative penalties on seven e-commerce platforms, including Pinduoduo, Meituan, JD.com, and Taobao Flash Purchase, for the "ghost delivery" series of cases, with a total fine of 3.597 billion yuan and a suspension of new cake shop openings on the platforms for three to nine months.

Due to inadequate review of food business operator licenses and failure to fulfill qualification review obligations as required by law, various e-commerce platforms received the "Administrative Penalty Decision" issued by the State Administration for Market Regulation regarding the platforms' failure to fulfill qualification review obligations. Meituan responded that the company will implement various rectification measures in accordance with food safety regulatory requirements, comprehensively enhance governance capabilities, and resolutely crack down on illegal and irregular activities such as restaurant order transfers and the use of fake qualifications for online operations, further upgrading measures and strengthening governance efforts to effectively safeguard food safety in delivery services