Shanghai begins the gradual climb back

Boon for others

While the pandemic has been disastrous for many food and beverage outlets, delivery services and fresh food producers have thrived, with most people staying home to avoid possible infection.

Last month, the delivery platform JD Daojia saw sales of vegetables rise by 60 percent compared with the same period a year ago. Sales of cooking oil, rice, flour and meat products doubled year-on-year.

According to the platform, fruit, vegetables, eggs and dairy products topped Shanghai residents' shopping lists. Upscale supermarkets with a presence on JD Daojia, such as 7Fresh, G-Super and City Super, also took more than twice the revenue compared with the same period last year.

Meanwhile, Dingdong Fresh, a fresh produce delivery platform, saw its number of orders between late January and mid-February soar by 80 percent year-on-year.

Company CEO Liang Changlin said growth was also due to other factors, such as a 70 percent year-on-year rise in the average purchase price per order.

"The trend has accelerated the development of online grocery purchases, and this is an irreversible trend even though we've flattened the curve (of infections)," Liang said.

"Our data suggest that a majority of users have become accustomed to cooking, so the key task now is to try to retain our users, rather than simply expand business scope."

Many people have been ordering takeouts. Wang Lei, head of Alibaba's local business services unit, said the number of food delivery orders on its platforms in February and March grew tenfold year-on-year.

According to a report released last month by the group-buying website Meituan Dianping, the pandemic has seen an influx of new users joining its platforms, with more than two-thirds of them in their 40s and 50s.