The 2020 Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) Food Festival kicked off in Beijing Saturday to mark China's Cultural and Natural Heritage Day, which fell on June 13 this year, showcasing more than 1,300 ICH food and drink brands online and at on-site exhibitions in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu.

This year's festival, jointly organized by the China Cuisine Association (CCA) and online food delivery, ticketing and rating giant Meituan Dianping, will run through June 16 with over 1,100 heritage food brands tagged "Time-honored Chinese Brand" for promotion on digital platforms.

Despite numerous restaurants and food stores impacted by the COVID-19, the 1,100-plus time-honored brands will offer more preferential classic delicacies online through consumer coupons, vouchers, red envelopes and discounts to stimulate consumption.

During the four-day event, ICH inheritors will also showcase their cooking skills via livestreams on Meituan's Dianping app, popular review and rating platform.

Customers can order traditional cuisine on the Meituan App and take a bite of authentic ICH food from the comfort of their homes. 

"The well-established brands and restaurants are important carriers for the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage as they have been passed down from generation to generation," said Lai Youwei, vice president of Meituan and director of the Meituan Research Institute.

Lai added that they will take advantage of the platforms to support classic food brands, using the internet and digital technologies to expand business channels and enhance brand influence and to make more ICH food products known and loved by consumers.

According to the "2020 Digital Report of ICH Food Brands" released by Meituan at the festival's opening ceremony, a total of 1,128 stores and restaurants affiliated to 96 surveyed Chinese classic food and beverage brands are distributed in 102 cities in 29 provinces and regions across the nation.

These time-honored brands are mostly concentrated in cities of long history and profound cultural foundation, and Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou ranked the top three with the largest number of old-brand stores and restaurants.

The report also showed that views of the tagged brands on the platform increased at an average rate of about 18 percent month by month with the views in May rising by nearly 90 percent compared to February.

The Saturday ceremony also saw the CCA along with Meituan issue a written proposal highlighting the digitalization of old-timey food brands and calling on the industry to make full use of internet platforms to enhance the inheritance and protection of ICH food.

Traditional food brands and catering companies are being encouraged to utilize digital technologies to rejuvenate ICH food and culinary legacy and boost the sustainable development of traditional Chinese culinary culture, said the proposal.

It also urged online platforms and e-commerce giants to cooperate with ICH food units to help the traditional delicacies join in the "main battlefield" of new consumption and to connect ICH food products with the digital world so as to gain new momentum for the development of ICH food and culinary art.

(Cover image by Jia Jieqiong)

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