The era of yellow- and blue-uniformed food couriers sprinting through offices and scurrying down China’s streets may be coming to an end.
Food delivery groups Meituan and Ele.me, owned by Alibaba, have announced tweaks to their algorithms as they try to head off a growing societal backlash against the stringent demands placed on their drivers — who became heroes to many Chinese during the country’s coronavirus lockdown early this year.
The new policies will allow China’s millions of scooter-riding couriers a bit more time to deliver each food order, changes which could have a business impact. Meituan, for example, has built its business on eking out ever more deliveries per day from its roughly 4m couriers and reached profitability last year.