It wasn’t fresh juice, and a visiting tourist complained. Word of mouth soon dented the boost given by the food critic.
The message was clear — authenticity counts.
Fast forward to 2025, and authenticity takes centre stage in the battle for customers across China’s social media landscape.
One of my favourite restaurant chains is XiBei. As the name suggests, it specialises in Northwestern cuisine with a meat-heavy menu famous for the Xinjiang roasts. Their advertising proudly claimed that the food was freshly cooked to order.
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Except it is not, and that has sparked a lasting social media storm around authenticity. Months after the initial story broke on Chinese social media, the fallout continues to linger.
My Beijing host apologetically explained that they had not chosen XiBei because of the adverse publicity. Later, when I sought out the restaurant myself, I found it almost deserted, whereas before there had always been a waiting line of customers.
Their crime was claiming that the food was freshly cooked to order, which, when you think about it, is a bit of a stretch when you receive a roasted leg of lamb just minutes after placing your order.
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Like every restaurant, XiBei used partially pre-prepared food that was quickly “finished off” with last-minute cooking in the restaurant before serving. It is the only way to have your roast chicken, lamb or beef delivered to your table in minutes, rather than waiting one or two hours for it to be cooked from scratch.
Social media influencer Luo Yonghao publicly criticised XiBei, alleging that most of the restaurant’s dishes were pre-made. He called for government legislation requiring restaurants to disclose whether pre-made dishes are used.
There is a debate over whether pre-prepared food can truly be classed as freshly cooked, but two things emerge from the brand destruction of XiBei. First, the customer’s interpretation may differ, but they decide where to spend.
Second is the growing importance of authenticity in promotional claims. This incident highlights a significant consumer trend in China, a rising demand for transparency. Social media can lift or smash a business’s reputation in a matter of days. In places where regulations are weak or poorly enforced, social media often fills the enforcement gap.
This is why fresh orange juice must really be fresh: authenticity counts.
Technical outlook for the Shanghai market
The Shanghai Index has pulled back. It is using the upper edge of the long-term Guppy Multiple Moving Average (GMMA) as a support feature.
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There is a cluster of support features that suggest the pullback may be temporary.
The first feature is the long-term GMMA. This is showing a small degree of compression, but not enough to suggest a major change in trend is developing.
The second feature is the value of the long-term uptrend line. This is currently near 3,920. This has been a consistent support feature for many months, so it has good strength.
The third support feature is the value of the old resistance level near 3,888. This was a strong resistance level, and the market took several months to break out above it. This suggests it can provide good support during the market retreat.
However, if these support features fail and the index moves below 3,888, then the next support level is near 3,700. At this stage of development, a fall to this level looks to be a low probability.
Aggressive traders will enter the market in anticipation of a rebound.
The separation between the short-term GMMA and the long-term GMMA has been reduced. A narrowing of the separation is an early warning of trend weakness.
Traders will continue to watch the GMMA relationship to determine if this is a temporary retreat or a significant change in the trend.
The index could pull back to the current value of the long-term uptrend line A and remain in a bullish uptrend.
Daryl Guppy is an international financial technical analysis expert. He has provided weekly Shanghai Index analysis for mainland Chinese media for two decades. Guppy appears regularly on CNBC Asia and is known as “The Chart Man”. He is a former national board member of the Australia-China Business Council. The writer owns Chinese stock and index ETFs.
