Chinese gourmands ordered about 45,000 tons of crayfish last year, making it one of the most popular take-out options on China’s largest food delivery platform Meituan.
In the first five months of 2019, 73% of crayfish ordered through Meituan were take-out orders, while the rest were pre-orders for dine-in customers, the platform said in a report published by the company yesterday.
Meituan said it had added about 140,000 crayfish take-out merchants to its platform in 2018, and an additional 50,000 in the first five months this year.
The biggest crayfish consumers are in southern provinces of Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Sichuan. Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong, consumed 2.6 million kg of the freshwater crustaceans in 2018.