Bad cake order sparks crackdown on China’s ghost kitchens

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A customer’s complaint about a cake delivery led investigators to discover a widespread scheme involving fake restaurant listings on food delivery apps throughout China.

The issue started when a customer in Beijing complained about flowers on their cake that weren’t meant to be eaten. This single complaint quickly grew into a larger investigation, revealing a widespread network of illegal, unlicensed kitchens operating through popular food delivery apps across China.

Ghost kitchens are common in both the UK and the US, but Chinese officials say that many of the ones we investigated were falsely advertising and using fake documents.

Officials discovered these listings were connected to a huge number of food orders, leading to a nationwide investigation and worries about how safely food is being delivered in China’s busy market.

Bad cake leads to nationwide investigation

The BBC reports that officials investigated a cake company and discovered they claimed to have 380 stores when they didn’t actually have any physical locations. The company also allegedly used fake business licenses and relied on other businesses to make and deliver the 3.6 million cakes they had orders for.

Honestly, this caused a lot of trouble with the police, and they started looking into all these ghost kitchens popping up. What they found was pretty wild – it turned out orders were being bounced around between different apps to find the cheapest delivery service. It was a whole system designed to cut costs, and it definitely got people’s attention!

The results suggest that fierce competition among food delivery companies in China could be leading them to focus on cheap prices at the expense of being open about their practices and ensuring food is safe.

To fight the problem of fake restaurants operating online, new rules are now in place. Delivery apps must check that restaurants are properly licensed and have real, physical locations. Businesses, in turn, need to make sure their online information accurately matches their actual operations.

Some restaurants are now offering a peek behind the scenes with “transparent kitchens” – livestreamed views of their food being prepared. In one province, authorities are also working with delivery services to try out AI systems that monitor kitchen activity.

Delivery drivers get extra rewards for letting us know about restaurants they suspect are involved in illegal activities.

This year hasn’t been easy for Chinese online marketplaces. In May, Temu received a $232 million penalty because its platform allowed the sale of prohibited items, and now the competitive food delivery sector is also under investigation.

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2026-06-02 15:21