Market Regulator Fines 7 Food Delivery Platforms 3.597 Billion Yuan, to Promote E-Certificates to Eliminate

The State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) recently held a press conference on food safety. Sun Huichuan, Food Safety Director-General, stated that in April 2026, SAMR investigated seven e-commerce platforms in a series of cases involving 'ghost kitchens', imposing fines and confiscations totaling 3.597 billion yuan. This is the largest penalty imposed on food delivery platforms since the implementation of the Food Safety Law. The cases alone uncovered more than 67,000 cake-related ghost shops. Ghost kitchens are essentially unlicensed operators without fixed premises that disguise themselves as legitimate merchants on delivery platforms through fake credentials, fraudulent permits, and fictitious addresses.

To further eradicate the breeding ground for ghost kitchens and prevent unqualified merchants from entering the online market, SAMR is actively promoting the application of electronic certificates in the governance of online food safety. This initiative aims to achieve three shifts: from 'firefighting after the fact' to 'prevention before the fact', from 'manpower-intensive tactics' to 'smart models', and from 'going it alone' to 'collaborative governance'. Electronic certificates are tamper-proof and highly anti-counterfeit. By connecting data with delivery platforms, SAMR can push electronic certificates to platforms for public display, effectively issuing an 'electronic ID' to each online food merchant. This enables automated and intelligent verification, shortening verification time and improving efficiency.

In the next phase, SAMR will guide local market regulators to intensify case investigations. Platforms that fail to fulfill their responsibility for verifying merchant qualifications will face strict penalties in accordance with the published enforcement standards for the ghost kitchen series cases. At the same time, SAMR will coordinate the promotion of electronic certificate verification applications in online food delivery, convene a national promotion meeting when appropriate, and encourage provinces with mature conditions to conduct pilot programs, thereby continuously improving the level of online food safety.