With diners gathered around cauldrons of boiling soup, dropping meat and vegetables into the broth, hot pot is a quintessentially communal Chinese dish. But the country’s dominant chain has a new weapon to attract single diners: stuffed bears.
The introduction of large plush toys to accompany solo diners in the some 200 outlets of the Haidilao chain highlights the efforts of businesses in China to take advantage of a demographic shift creating a rising number of single consumers.
“They help people feel less lonely,” said Wang Ping, a waitress at a Haidilao in Shanghai, suggesting the Financial Times choose between a large teddy bear and a stuffed yellow chicken.
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