China is a country of intriguing contrasts. On the one hand, it has one of the world’s oldest cuisines. On the other hand, it is keenly embracing trends and innovating its food culture. And, thanks to some of the world’s fastest rates of urbanization, digitization and wealth creation, China is now a heady mix of past and future, formal and informal, tradition and innovation.
On the face of it, the fast-changing food culture of China’s megacities appears to be particular to those metropolises, if not unique. The scale and pace of change in those cities certainly seems unprecedented.
However, we believe these cities may provide a glimpse of how the food cultures of other fast-growing cities may change. Indeed, SPACE10’s mission is to create a better and more sustainable way of life for the many people. And, as pragmatic idealists, we believe some of the trends in this report could help us meet that challenge.
Consider China’s enthusiastic adoption of emerging technologies. The country’s rapid digitization is inclusive of the many people, its embrace of technology widespread. Cheap smartphones, low technical barriers and QR codes are enabling old-school vendors to use new-fangled payment methods. E-commerce giants are providing mom-and-pop shops with shared sales data and analytic tools, upping the digital game of these small businesses and helping them compete with chain stores. And livestreaming and e-commerce are now as simple as downloading an app, shrinking the literal and figurative distance of rural farmers from the nation’s vibrant e-commerce market.
Some trends are as cautionary as they are captivating, though. Take food delivery — perhaps the most significant food trend in China today. It is changing what people eat, when they eat it and where they eat it. It is changing the concept of what a restaurant is and where it makes sense to situate it in a city. And it is changing the rhythm and flow of people moving around the city. Yet there’s a flipside to the cost and convenience of food delivery: namely, the sustainability challenges presented by the required transport infrastructure; the stress of working in the industry (as well as the question of which demographics the industry employs); the amount of unnecessary packaging and waste produced; and the diminished importance and relevance of cooking and eating at home. So, if food delivery explodes in other global cities, values besides cost and convenience will have to come to the fore and help us create food-delivery systems that are more environmentally and culturally sustainable. In particular, methods of dealing with food and packaging waste, and of encouraging more home cooking, will be essential aspects of future sustainable food experiences.
Finally, the specter of automation is haunting China’s food culture. The automation of jobs is a particular concern to workers in the service sector, whose roles may one day be substituted by technology. China is moving quickly in this respect, and humanless shops may soon be part of the new normal. To preserve the human factor — which is to preserve our food culture — we should look to technology not just to automate the human experience but to augment it.
This is the conclusion to a 12-part series on Food Megacity: how urbanization and technology are changing the way China eats. The full series can be found here.
