Huifu Payment signs deal with Acewill to serve China's growing catering business

Huifu Payment Ltd, a leading third-party payment platform, formed a strategic partnership on Thursday with catering IT solution provider Acewill to make the nation's 4 trillion yuan dining business more efficient and resilient.

Channeling an undisclosed amount of investment to Acewill, Huifu is looking not just to extend digital capabilities to smaller players in the industry but to help avoid unnecessary waste in food consumption through smart recommendation mechanisms offered to customers, said Zhou Ye, chairman and CEO of Huifu.

The tie-up is designed to combine Huifu's comprehensive payment solutions, which accept any form of digital payment available in China, with Acewill's expertise in digitizing large and medium-sized restaurants and food chains.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly advanced the digitalization trend of the catering business by three to five years," Zhou said. "Yet the entire process includes more than mobile ordering and payment-it also involves the intelligence of supply chain, flexible manufacturing based on customer preference, and smart marketing."

The cooperation can help customers maintain food consumption at a reasonable range, as customers stand to receive automated menu recommendations based on the number of diners, their preferred flavors and consumption levels.

"Balance of nutrition is a key parameter in our algorithms (for order recommendation)," said Kong Lingbo, founder and chairman of Acewill. "Also, when spending by a certain order has surpassed the average level, the system would send out alert reminding service attendants of potential wastes to be incurred."

Under the agreement, the pair is eyeing to encompass all order, payment, take out, marketing and customer management into one umbrella, and making the package of services to a long tail of smaller and even mom-and-pop food halls which typically lack digitizing capabilities.

China's catering business has maintained a steady annual growth rate of 10 percent since 2013, with revenue in 2019 reaching 4.67 trillion yuan, according to China Hospitality Association.