Oh Shut Up About Food Scares in China Already, BenLai is Changing It Up

To be honest, I only started to cook more after moving to Beijing because you’ll never know what is really going through that gastrointestinal tract of yours if you eat at a restaurant, and a visit to the doctor isn’t that pleasant either (you can trust me on this). In the wake of all these food scares in China we’ve been reading so much about, BenLai.com wants to be China’s top provider of quality groceries delivered right to your doorstep.

Established just last year, the Beijing-based online grocery store saves locals a trip to the supermarket. BenLai provides goods that range from locally-grown organic vegetables to imported baby milk powder from America and salmon from Norway. They even offer monthly plans for your standard grocery needs, saving the hassle of you picking what to buy each time. For the latter deal it delivers twice a week for a total of four weeks.

To ensure that the quality of food is high, the service is only offered in Beijing and promises to deliver in 24 hours for areas within the sixth ring road. The startup also assures that the time from stuff being packed to the point of delivery takes a mere eight hours; and during that eight hours the food is being kept at optimum temperatures according to the individual needs of each item so that it stays fresh.

So as long as you place your orders right before midnight, your grocery shopping will be delivered the next morning. It supports both online and offline payments; for orders above RMB60 ($9.80) delivery is free and orders below that will require a RMB10 ($1.60) delivery fee.

So why is BenLai doing this?

I mean, having access to safe food is a basic human need isn’t it? The team at BenLai has a couple of reasons for its existence: One, to be able to enjoy safe food, to the company, is a basic right. Two, the name Ben Lai (本来) when translated means, “originally”. The team feels that the food consumers should be consuming must be in its original condition instead of fearing that it contains harmful chemicals.

Food scares are undermining the trust of China’s new leaders and there’s a national crisis of confidence in food standards. Just 12 percent of people were worried about food safety in 2008 in China, but that’s now up to 41 percent in 2012, according to Pew Research.

There are other choices for food deliveries in China, such as Walmart-owned Yihaodian, or Alibaba’s Taobao grocery deliveries in Hangzhou and Beijing.

But if you want organic foodstuff, the main rivals to BenLai are the imported goods from the US made available on Alibaba’s Tmall earlier this year, or the organic farmer offerings that are also on Taobao.

But skepticism still remains; should we give this startup a chance to prove to the world that better food standards in China can be achieved?