Industry News

Recently, in Xiangfang District, Harbin City, over 600 food delivery riders and nearly 1800 community grid workers formed a special part-time food safety supervision team. Not only Heilongjiang, but also Jiangxi, Shandong and other places have begun to explore involving food delivery drivers, grid workers and others in food safety supervision. This new model breaks the limitations of traditional regulation and provides a good solution to the problem of catering regulation.

 

Throughout, food safety regulation has mainly relied on market supervision departments, which are professional and authoritative, but there are also shortcomings. At present, there are a large number of catering merchants, scattered distribution, and flexible operating hours. Limited law enforcement personnel make it difficult to achieve round the clock and full coverage supervision without blind spots. Daily inspections inevitably have blind spots and lag. Delivery drivers shuttle through the streets and alleys every day to pick up food, while grid workers are rooted in the community and familiar with the merchants in their jurisdiction. They are the "first observers" of the hygiene of the catering kitchen and the operation of the store. Hidden problems such as random stacking of ingredients, untimely cleaning of kitchen waste, and dirty and messy kitchen environment may not be detected by law enforcement officers in a timely manner, but they cannot escape the eyes of riders and grid workers. Absorbing social forces to participate in supervision is equivalent to weaving a 24/7, seamless civilian supervision network outside of administrative supervision, with flexible ways of capturing and reporting clues at will, accurately filling the gaps in traditional supervision.

 

The advantages of the new model are prominent, but there are still several practical difficulties in its implementation and promotion. One is to clarify the boundaries of rights and responsibilities and eliminate regulatory confusion. Delivery drivers and grid workers are not law enforcement officers, what can and cannot they do? How to deal with problems discovered? If false reporting leads to the merchant being wrongly accused, who will bear the responsibility? These are all issues that need to be clarified. In this regard, various regions need to establish standardized reporting procedures, clarify that food delivery drivers and grid workers are "information collectors" rather than "law enforcers", and develop clear reporting standards for law enforcement departments to follow up and handle.

 

The second is to make up for professional shortcomings and improve the quality and efficiency of supervision. What kind of kitchen is considered 'dirty and messy'? What are the basic requirements for storing food ingredients? What constitutes a food safety hazard? These problems may seem simple, but many riders and grid workers lack professional judgment ability, inevitably resulting in "not reporting what should be reported, and reporting what should not be reported". Relevant training can be conducted in various regions to popularize basic knowledge through case studies and other methods, in order to reduce ineffective reporting.

 

Thirdly, we need to improve incentives and protection to dispel any concerns about the future. The participation of riders in supervision will consume time and energy, affect order revenue, and may also result in retaliation from merchants; Grid operators reporting issues may also affect the relationships between neighboring merchants. Various regions can establish a positive incentive system, providing corresponding rewards to supervisors through points exchange, material rewards, and preferential distribution rights. At the same time, strict implementation of the whistleblower information confidentiality system and severe retaliation can be carried out to build a secure barrier for civilian supervision. (Source: Economic Daily, Author: Ma Weiwei)

 

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