The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing me to do something I hate doing: cooking.
This is why I started my Bite. Me. blog two years ago – I hate cooking so much, I eat out a lot.
You can’t eat out right now, but you can order takeout or food via a delivery app. Those apps are doing huge business right now. They help customers and they help restaurants, although some apps charge insane fees. I get that drivers are taking risks, so I hope these high fees charged by some of the apps (some apps have reduced or waived certain fees) means extra money for the drivers taking all the risks.
One app that seems to be doing really well right now is Fantuan, a Burnaby-based success story. Fantuan is the go-to app for any type of Asian food. I live on Burnaby Mountain and have seen a definite increase in the number of Fantuan drivers dropping off food.
You can tell Fantuan by its distinctive logo that depicts a happy rice ball.
There’s been a steady stream of Fantuan drivers in my neighbourhood during the past few weeks – way more than normal.
Based out of two floors of offices in South Burnaby, Fantuan now has more than 50 full-time employees based in Vancouver and hundreds of thousands of registered users in Canadian cities. The company has also expanded into the U.S. market in Seatlle, New York City and Los Angeles.
Fantuan has now expanded its app from food deliveries to other features, including self-pickup (with discounts), online reviews of the restaurants it delivers for, and online shopping in which users can order grocery items and have them delivered. The main focus, of course, is on delivering food – mostly Chinese food. Fantuan orders are roughly 60-per-cent Chinese food and 40-per-cent split between food from other Asian countries, such as Vietnam, Japan and Thailand, as well as fast-food outlets like Subway.
