With China's new food safety law coming into effect on Oct. 1, food vendors using online platforms are falling short of the standards established, according to state-backed news agency Xinhua.
The law requires food vendors to provide better information disclosure about their products.
Websites offering food delivery, like Eleme, have become popular in China in recent years. Eleme operates in over 250 cities and regions, receiving as much as 2.4 million orders a day, making as much as 75 million yuan ($11.8 million).
In the coming years, China is expecting a rise in online food transactions, with revenue growing to more than 100 billion yuan ($15.7 billion) per year, according to Xinhua.
However, several vendors that use Eleme to sell their goods actually operate in poor environments, despite showing photogenic food shots.
One questionable vendor that sells lobster dishes and prices up to 200 yuan ($32) was found operating in a different location than the one noted in its Eleme registration. Lobsters were contained in dirty water, with no license in sight.
Fan Yiming, a Zhengzhou resident, said that he only found out about the lobster vendor after he picked up his order himself and witnessed the unsanitary conditions.
Since online food sale is in its early stages, the quality of the vendors involved is difficult to control.
Despite the new food safety law requiring online food services to follow the same regulations as other vendors, experts say that it will take some time before the law can be implemented for them.
An official with the China Food and Drug Administration has said that online food services are a more complicated model of consumption than purchasing food directly from vendors. The nature of the business also makes them harder to regulate.