Market supervision authorities in Guangdong province have signed collaborative co-governance agreements on online catering food safety with major takeaway service providers, aiming to transform the online catering food industry from passive compliance to proactive governance.

The agreements signed with e-commerce giants Meituan, Taobao Flash Shopping and JD Takeaway followed the implementation of regulations on the supervision and administration of food safety responsibilities of online catering service providers, which took effect on June 1.

The three major takeaway service platforms also signed a self-discipline convention on high-quality development and food safety in Guangdong's online catering industry to strengthen collaborative co-governance.

According to the agreements, a cross-platform blacklist sharing mechanism will be introduced, which imposes joint restrictions on severely violating merchants across the three platforms.

Under the agreements, if a merchant is expelled from one platform due to serious food safety issues, the other two platforms will also blacklist it, effectively blocking the path for non-compliant merchants to re-enter the market under a different platform.

The collaboration also promotes the opening of live kitchen broadcasts by catering merchants, allowing consumers to directly view kitchen videos when placing orders, according to the agreements.

Delivery riders and consumers also play a crucial role in the food safety supervision system, with their reports on food safety issues to be directly connected with regulatory departments, according to the agreements.