How to alleviate the ＂difficulty in buying food＂？ Five aspects of Shanghai’s anti-epidemic ＂guarantee for supply＂
Xinhua News Agency, Shanghai, April 11th Question: How to alleviate the "difficulty in buying food"? — — Five aspects of Shanghai’s anti-epidemic "guarantee for supply"
Xinhua News Agency "Xinhua Viewpoint" reporter Zhou Rui
Doing a good job in ensuring the living materials of 25 million citizens is the basis and key for Shanghai to win the battle against epidemic. Recently, some citizens have reported that "it is difficult to buy food" which has aroused widespread concern. Xinhua News Agency "Xinhua Viewpoint" reporter launched an investigation.
Source of supply
In the middle of the night, in Taizhou, Zhejiang, and Yuhang, Hangzhou, which are hundreds of kilometers away from Shanghai, the lights are brightly lit in the two city sorting centers where people are working nonstop to prepare emergency supply packages for the closed communities in Shanghai. Potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, corn, apples, cereals and eggs are about to be sent to Shanghai.
Ding Dong buys vegetables. In Yuhang City Sorting Center in Hangzhou, batches of fruits and vegetables are waiting to be shipped to Shanghai. Photo courtesy of interviewees
For some time, many suppliers have reported that due to the epidemic prevention policies in various places, trucks and vegetable vendors from other places can’t supply vegetables to Shanghai in time, and some vegetable direct supply bases can’t transport them, which puts pressure on the "source" of Shanghai’s supply.
"At present, the battle against epidemic in Shanghai has reached the most critical moment." Chen Tong, deputy mayor of Shanghai and head of the special class of living materials support of the municipal leading group for epidemic prevention and control, said that with the joint efforts of various security agencies, the storage of rice, grain, oil and meat in Shanghai is relatively sufficient at present. At the same time, Shanghai has also locked in the supply of vegetables and pork outside the city, which can be transported to Shanghai at any time.
Gu Jun, director of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce, said that Shanghai pays close attention to the production situation in the main producing areas, strengthens ties with the main producing areas of vegetables and pork such as Shandong, Yunnan, Zhejiang, Anhui and Sichuan, and locks in local sources. "The national ministries and commissions have established a ministerial-level coordination mechanism to smooth inter-provincial transportation. We continue to promote the inter-provincial logistics non-contact delivery mechanism. At present, three domestic materials transfer stations in Kunshan, Jiangsu, Pinghu, Zhejiang and Xijiao International in the city have been put into operation."
More market players are still joining. "JD.COM will provide Shanghai with more than 16 million pieces of rice, flour, grain, oil and other livelihood commodities." Wang Wenbo, vice president of JD.COM Group, said that through urgent national allocation, the first batch of key guaranteed supplies have arrived in Shanghai by "special car" and "closed-loop traffic", including over 80,000 maternal and child supplies and over 100,000 medicines and epidemic prevention supplies.
App grabs food
Affected by the epidemic, there is a gap in the distribution capacity of some e-commerce platforms in Shanghai. In order to grab food, some citizens set three or five alarms a day.
He Hui, who lives in Changning District, exposed the "big gift package" distributed free of charge on the street. She said that since she worked at home during this time, she would set an alarm to grab food every night and morning. "Our street has been serving vegetables for the second time, but with the longer the closure time, the anxiety of grabbing vegetables and hoarding vegetables has not diminished."
Chen Tong admits that due to the prevention and control of the epidemic, the distribution capacity at the end of the e-commerce platform has also dropped significantly under the background that many supermarkets and food markets are still unable to operate normally, resulting in the contradiction between "the last mile" and "the last hundred meters".
"The citizens have reported that it is difficult to grab food and cannot deliver it, mainly because the end distribution is under great pressure." Gu Jun said that some communities have been closed for a month, and the demand for living materials of residents has expanded from staple food to daily necessities, epidemic prevention materials and basic medicines.
Now, the "helper" to alleviate the App’s "difficulty in buying food" is already on the road. The reporter learned that many insurance companies, such as Hungry, Box Horse and Meituan, have mobilized thousands of staff from Beijing, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Anhui and other places to come to Shanghai for support.
"I want to contribute to Shanghai." On the 9th, Cen Feng, who came to Shanghai for support from RT Mart in Huangyan, Zhejiang, just got off the train and went to Zhongyuan Store in RT Mart, where he devoted himself to the supply guarantee. According to the company’s plan, this store has now "transformed" into a fresh warehouse, and many goods from other places will be transferred from here to other stores.
At Huacao Store in RT Mart, the sorted and packaged goods are waiting for delivery. Photo courtesy of interviewees
Yonghui Supermarket also said that Yonghui will deploy security personnel from Fujian, Anhui and other places to help Shanghai fight the epidemic. In the past week, Yonghui has 50 backbones in Shanghai, and it is expected that another 600 people will be transferred to Shanghai in the coming week.
Wang Wenbo introduced that in Shanghai, JD.COM has successively deployed more than 2,000 first-line anti-epidemic personnel, including courier brother, to provide services for operational support and material delivery. "It is expected that more manpower will be invested in the follow-up."
Group buying force
In order to improve the efficiency of supply guarantee, more effective distribution methods are needed. During the new round of blockade, collection and distribution, group meals and group purchases are becoming effective forces to protect the "vegetable basket" of residents’ homes.
"At present, the biggest difficulty in ensuring the supply of living materials is how to send them to every household." Liu Min, deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce, said that Shanghai is docking with supermarkets and e-commerce platforms, and will deliver living materials to the community through centralized distribution and delivery, so as to cover the basic material needs of as many consumers as possible with limited transportation capacity.
Many supermarkets in Shanghai have started to take action. On April 3rd, Carrefour launched two ways: community small assembly list and WeChat community collection list. Xiong Xuebing, manager of Carrefour Jinqiao Store, said that this model is not only convenient for enterprises to organize the supply of goods, but also can make maximum use of the transportation capacity.
In Pudong New Area, Lianhua staff are transporting the supplies collected and distributed. Photo courtesy of interviewees
The reporter found that compared with the "point-to-point" traditional point-to-point distribution mode, the collection and distribution can meet the basic needs of the residents of the whole community in one breath, and the distribution efficiency is higher, which is more suitable for the current lack of riders in Shanghai.
However, there is still room for improvement in this model. For example, some "mini-communities" and serviced apartments can’t meet the minimum order quantity of centralized collection and distribution, so it is necessary to arrange "counterpart" enterprises to meet the needs of residents.
"the last 100 meters"
In the case of closed control, the "last 100 meters" of material distribution from the entrance of the community to the residents’ homes has become difficult. At present, in the closed residential area of Shanghai, residents often need volunteers to provide services.
Li Xiaojun, who lives in Minhang District, is a rare young man in a community with a high degree of aging. After the closure was started, Li Xiaojun took the initiative to apply to be a volunteer and participated in the work of organizing nucleic acid sampling and distributing materials. At the same time, we also collect orders offline so that the elderly who can’t use the Internet can also buy and serve. "Through volunteer shifts and social workers, we can solve the food demand of a small part of the community." He said.
"I haven’t slept for a few days." Cai Xiaobing, the head of YTO Express Shanghai Fuquan Branch, has a hoarse voice. From April 4th, he led the courier brother to volunteer in the nearby community. In less than a week, their service scope extended from the nearby community to the nearby residents for 10 kilometers.
On April 9, Cai Xiaobing, the head of YTO Express Shanghai Fuquan Branch, unloaded the goods in Qicun Community, xin jing, Changning District. Xinhua News Agency reporter Chen Jianli photo
At the same time, Meituan, JD.COM and other platforms have urgently deployed a lot of "unmanned vehicles" to alleviate the difficulty in the delivery of the "last 100 meters" in Shanghai communities.
Du Haitao, the stationmaster of Kangqiao Road Station where Meituan buys vegetables, said that the new generation of automatic delivery vehicles with a load of over 150 kilograms will drive to the downstairs of the user units in the community and be taken out by the volunteers stationed downstairs. "After each delivery, we will fully disinfect the inside and outside of the car in time to reduce hidden dangers. This model can save about half of the delivery time compared with the original manual delivery. "
Special group
"One can’t be less." To fight the battle of ensuring supply, Shanghai not only needs to effectively solve the common problems, but also do its best to ensure the living and material needs of special groups such as the elderly, the chronically ill, the infants and the disabled.
Ms. Duan, who lives in the Expo home in Minhang District, said that her father needed to take drugs to improve immunity after surgery, but many hospitals and pharmacies suspended their services during the epidemic. "Later, I found a beneficial drug pharmacy with a healthy drug cloud, and I confirmed that I could send prescription drugs to my door. I suddenly settled a lot." She said.
Xiao Shuixian, senior vice president of Hungry, said that in response to the rising demand of residents for medicines, more than 1,000 pharmacies have been docked. Since the new round of closure on March 28, nearly 1 million orders for medicines have been sent.
A hungry rider is disinfecting the takeaway box. Photo courtesy of interviewees
Chen Tong said that Shanghai has established an emergency special needs guarantee mechanism to thoroughly explore the special groups such as the elderly, infants and disabled people in the territory, so as to make the base clear; Establish a special channel for emergency needs on the e-commerce network enterprise platform to ensure the living materials needs of special people.
"Among them, baby milk powder has been listed as a key supply guarantee, and the allocation, transportation and distribution of such products will be guaranteed. Major e-commerce platforms and supermarkets will give priority to receiving orders and distribution." Chen Tong said.
On April 6th, Yonghui Life App launched the function of "special needs for epidemic situation", and received nearly 400 special orders on the first day of launch. At present, orders are growing rapidly. Su Xianyang, the relevant person in charge of Dada Express Shanghai, said that at present, Dada Express has arranged 30 delivery vehicles for the community milk powder distribution project, and it is expected that milk powder can be delivered to 500 families every day.