MEAL DELIVERY INNOVATION: ONE-STOP MEAL SHOPPING

Now, this is interesting. Meituan, China's number 1 local services platform, has launched a new meal delivery service called 'Huanxiong Shitang' (Racoon Canteen). It allows Meituan users to order meals from multiple merchants at once (instead of ordering from different places and potentially having multiple couriers arrive at your door).

The way this is done is the most interesting. Meituan opens large 'dark stores' (currently several in Beijing) and sets up multiple stalls for chain restaurants. It's like a 'food court' for online orders. The initiative is not so much driven to save delivery costs; the primary reason is better food safety. Meituan will train the staff and do daily safety and hygiene inspections of the stalls.

Racoon Canteen is available in the Meituan app and as a mini program in WeChat. The mini-program interface has all the merchants in a bar at the top, and it shows the dishes of the selected merchant below (see picture). Users can put dishes from various merchants in their shopping cart and place one order. The rest of the process is identical to regular Meituan orders. As can be seen below, new customers receive three discount coupons. Videos and pictures of the clean kitchens are also shared in the app.

While the individual stores of merchants have more variety to choose from than those in Raccoon Canteen (which offers only a selection), it does make ordering from multiple merchants much more convenient. No more quarrels with your partner if you will eat Sichuan or Dongbei dishes tonight! 😉 And you can also save delivery fees. Product pricing and delivery times are similar in the individual stores and Raccoon Canteen.

For merchants, setting up a 'dark kitchen' in a Raccoon Canteen saves many costs compared to an offline dining restaurant. It can also create more visibility in Meituan, and they don't need to set up multiple offline dine-in stores to create sufficient coverage.

For Meituan, Raccoon Canteen creates higher operational efficiency as it needs less delivery time and couriers. It should also generate less packaging and waste.

However, different speeds of preparing food at different merchants challenge this new model. If one merchant is slow, the whole order will be delayed.

Meituan is in the process of expanding from 6 to 15 Beijing stores.

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