Call the delivery man

Called Lieferheld in German and featuring a muscular mascot in Superman-style outfit, Delivery Hero is the global leader in food delivery with nearly 300 million orders processed last year.

The Berlin-based firm was forced to pull out of China in 2016 after fierce competition from Meituan and Dianping, which have since merged to become the country’s dominant food delivery firm.

But when two young women in Liaoning placed an order on Meituan last week, they were desperate for a superhero to save them.

“It doesn’t matter what food you will be sending to us but please send a young man who could kill a giant centipede on our roof,” the women wrote in the “special request” column of their order. “This is super urgent and we are not joking.”

A 22 year-old delivery hero soon arrived. After putting down the meals he addressed his more unusual task, although the centipede could no longer be found after an apartment search. Now feeling safer, his grateful customers still paid him “extra tips” for coming to their rescue.

A photo of the order receipt, featuring the unorthodox “special request”, has since gone viral. This sounds like a marketing coup for Meituan as well, because onlookers praised the company for its extra efforts. Even better, the story has topped the search results for “Meituan and centipede”, overriding an earlier news item about a centipede found in a lunchbox that Meituan had delivered.

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