| Network catering is a new type of catering sales and consumption mode that combines traditional catering with the Internet,logistics and third-party platforms.The combination of online catering with traditional food service stores makes the consumption mode flexible,the choice variety,and the growth rate of the sinking market accelerated,therefore,online catering is very popular among office workers,singles and young groups,especially for the young generation who stay at home,online catering has become almost a daily necessity.With the development of Internet technology,the increase of urbanization rate and the increase of the number of people employed in the tertiary industry,the scale of China’s online catering consumers also increases year by year.As of March 2020,the number of Chinese take-out consumers reached 397 million,while the number of merchants engaged in the take-out industry is growing rapidly,with a significant increase in the rate of digitization and online presence.However,in recent years,there have been many food safety problems with online catering,including "unlicensed operations","black-hearted workshops","take-out boys stealing customers’ take-out",and "businesses selling expired or changed food".The number of reports of"merchants selling expired and spoiled food" is increasing,and the issue of online food safety needs to be addressed.In order to strengthen the supervision of network catering food safety and investigate and deal with network food violations according to law,the State Food and Drug Administration has considered and introduced regulations such as "Measures for Investigation and Handling of Network Food Safety Violations" and "Measures for Supervision and Administration of Food Safety of Network Catering Services" in 2016 and 2017 to improve the supervision of network catering food safety from the institutional level.This paper focuses on the regulation of the grassroots government in District Y of Jining City,and uses stakeholder theory and collaborative governance theory to conduct an in-depth study of the regulation of online food safety through the literature analysis method and case study method.Through investigation and research,it is found that the main problems faced by the grassroots government in Y district for online catering food safety supervision are:weak government supervision,insufficient law enforcement,lack of supervision of the production process and the third-party platform for online transactions,lack of training for food producers and uniform regulations on the quality of tableware,lack of supervision of the transaction process and effective protection of consumers’ rights.By examining the interests of producers,regulators,delivery personnel,consumers and third-party platforms,it is clear that the main reasons for the impact on online food safety are:increased difficulty in supervision in the context of the "decentralization" reform,lack of responsibility of producers,malicious competition,lack of supervision of the delivery process,lack of information sharing between third-party platforms and government departments,and low legal awareness of consumers.The lack of information sharing between third-party platforms and government departments,weak consumer awareness of the law,and low government regulatory effectiveness are some of the reasons.As an emerging mode of food consumption,the regulatory system is not yet mature enough,especially because of the nature of take-out,which makes it possible to face the problems of traditional catering,but also the problems of concealed production sites,distribution links out of supervision,and backward means of supervision.This paper argues that the key to solving these problems is to strengthen the supervision of food safety at source,introduce "block chain"technology,improve the supervision of the delivery chain,improve the regulatory mechanism,and enhance consumers’ legal awareness.It is hoped that this paper will contribute to improving the level of supervision of grassroots government online catering and ensuring online food safety. |
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