A gluey mess: China cracks down on ‘ghost kitchen’ food deliveries - AFR

Michele's take

China's regulatory crackdown on ghost kitchens is a signal that should not be dismissed by Western operators and franchise networks still romanticizing the asset-light delivery model. What's playing out in China — where rapid, unregulated proliferation has triggered food safety failures and consumer trust erosion — mirrors the structural vulnerabilities I've flagged for years: when you strip out the physical accountability of a branded location, quality control becomes a policy document rather than an operational reality. Any investor or franchisor currently scaling virtual kitchen concepts without robust third-party auditing and transparent origin labeling is building on the same unstable foundation that regulators are now dismantling in one of the world's largest delivery markets.