Labor in food and farming systems, migrant workers, labor rights, and changes in production-side work.
The “Reiwa rice riot” pushed 5 kg of Koshihikari to ¥5,072, yet doubled prices cannot save Japan’s paddies: decades of the acreage-reduction policy have kept prices depressed, 70% of farmers are over 65, more than 10,000 hectares vanish each year, and young people won’t take over.
An ordinary employee at a McDonald’s in Shanghai’s Jing’an District earns 19 yuan per hour, rising to 21 yuan only after 1,000 hours. When takeaway orders surge, riders are pressed by the platform, staff are pressed by orders, and leftovers are thrown away after closing.
Renso, a Chinese woman on a Working Holiday Visa, delivers food on foot for Uber Eats in Melbourne – over 80 orders and 1,200+ AUD in her first month. No fixed deadlines, no docked pay, no impatient customers: this laid-back rhythm gradually cured her anxiety.
Summer arrives, and with it, another season for watermelon. Watermelons are inseparable from summer, just as the farmers behind the fruit evolve alongside their crop. Wherever there is land, you will find the watermelon farmers of Taizhou. Their history of enterprise dates back to the 1980s, forming another chapter in…
I. Flowers in Early Bloom On 3 May, in Jinqu Town, Mei County, Shaanxi, Xu Yuanlin spotted the messenger flower in his vineyard first thing in the morning. He was stunned. The so-called messenger flower is the first blossom of the season; like a herald, it warns farmers to begin…
JD recognises riders’ employment relationship and bears the full cost of social insurance and housing provident fund contributions, costing riders just 525 yuan a month; Meituan sidesteps employment status, subsidising only flexible-employment pension and medical at 1,500 yuan. “Losing 0.39 yuan per order” ignores commissions – food delivery is actually profitable.
Eight years from Xiji, Ningxia, to Shenzhen have reduced Ma Lan’s halal food choices almost entirely to Lanzhou hand-pulled noodles and cooking for herself. Eating has become something she always faces alone.
From hospitals to livestream rooms, Registered Dietitians remain divided between survival pressures and ethical bottom lines; with industry norms still unclear, telling “pseudo-science” apart is a lesson no consumer can avoid.
Qingming is a festival for ancestral worship and tomb-sweeping. This year, Qingming falls on 4 April, which happens to be 404. This brings to mind those articles that have been 404 not found. Last year, several Foodthink articles “disappeared” from our WeChat official account—the highest number in our history. Yet,…
Foodthink’s “Eat Something Good” column has received dozens of readers’ letters, each naming a different moment: the plastic smell of a takeaway box, a delivery rider’s bleeding hand on a snowy day, the phone set down after tallying the delivery fee.
