Xibei, a popular Chinese restaurant chain, has issued an apology for “letting customers down,” announcing that eight items on its menu will now be freshly prepared and sold on site, rather than frozen for months and reheated.

The apology, publicized Monday, comes in response to public backlash set off last Wednesday by Luo Yonghao, an internet celebrity known for founding the Chinese tech company Smartisan. On microblogging platform Weibo, Luo criticized the restaurant for its expensive menu of “almost all pre-made dishes,” urging regulators to require restaurants to label pre-made menu items.

Luo’s posts last week ignited heated discussion online, where “pre-made meals” have become a lightning rod for Chinese consumer frustration over food quality, pricing, and transparency in recent years.

“Our stores do not serve pre-made dishes,” Xibei founder Jia Guolong initially responded, stressing that Xibei only uses central kitchens to clean, cut, and portion raw ingredients before they are sent to restaurants, where chefs cook the meals on site.

The company also announced plans to sue Luo for defamation and opened its kitchen doors nationwide to allow customers to observe the cooking process. Luo responded by posting a 100,000-yuan ($14,000) reward for evidence of Xibei using pre-made dishes.

The market responded swiftly to Luo’s attacks. Domestic media reported that on Friday, Xibei lost over 2 million yuan nationwide, with deliveries dropping from 30 orders per day to only three or four at individual stores.

China’s pre-made food industry has grown rapidly in recent years, driven by consumer demand and the rise of food delivery. There are currently more than 70,000 pre-made food processing companies in China, with an output value exceeding 500 billion yuan in 2023.

However, public understanding and official definitions of pre-made food differ. “According to current standards, meals delivered by central kitchens do not fall into the category of pre-prepared dishes. This differs from the common perception that any packaged, pre-processed food qualifies as such,” Huang Caihua, director of Beijing Jinwen Law Firm, said in an interview with domestic media.

While Xibei’s approach doesn’t align with this definition, kitchen tours revealed extensive use of frozen food — including broccoli with a two-year shelf life — fueling widespread outrage.

In response to the controversy, domestic media reported Saturday that authorities would soon begin soliciting public feedback on the draft of the National Food Safety Standard for Pre-made Meals. The standard would, for the first time, require restaurants to publicly display information about the use of pre-made meals, stipulating that pre-made dishes cannot contain preservatives. 

The feud between Luo and Jia continued until Monday night, when Luo finally decided to drop all legal charges against Xibei and cancel the 100,000-yuan reward he had previously offered. 

“From now on, I only want to solve real problems and avoid being swayed by personal feelings,” Luo wrote in conclusion.

Editor: Marianne Gunnarsson.

(Header image: Chefs work at a Xibei restaurant in Beijing, 2021. VCG)