The Commerce Department's latest "Guidelines for Epidemic Prevention and Control" suggests that restaurants should provide communal chopsticks and spoons, but as for why it doesn't push for a separate meal system, I think the regulations are regulations after all, and carry a certain element of enforceability. And it's understandable that the push for separate meals is a recommendation, so it's not specifically labeled as such in the prevention and control guidelines.

Split meals are not in line with China's dietary habits

Additionally, split meals are not in line with China's dietary culture, which prefers a family to sit down at the table and eat, and likes to give each other food. If the split meal system is pushed, it would mean that everyone eats what's on their plate, like in Western food.

Portioning is more demanding and requires more changes for restaurants

The changes that would need to be made for a restaurant would be huge because it would need to correspond to everyone's tastes, and making very small portion sizes just wouldn't be cost-effective for the restaurant.

Because the current market value of a bowl of food is basically more than 40 to 50, if you make a small portion of the dishes according to each person's own tastes, generally only one or two dozen. For the business of the restaurant will have an impact, resulting in lower operating income, which is a huge change. That's why it's often difficult to implement the recommendations, even when they're introduced.

Providing communal chopsticks and spoons is easier to achieve

And asking restaurants to provide communal chopsticks and spoons is a very simple request, and it's easy to do. Even if they don't, it doesn't cost much to purchase some of them. And these things can be reused over and over again, so the cost to the restaurant is very small. And the Commerce Department took these issues into account, so it didn't choose the more difficult and hard-to-implement rules.

Customers can choose to share meals

Of course, there's nothing wrong with customers wanting to share meals themselves. There is nothing wrong with ordering your favorite dishes and eating them separately in some more appropriate restaurants. But for traditional Chinese restaurants, this kind of split meal system is really not in line with our eating habits.