Fresh Hippo manager sleeps on floor, eats noodles to keep supplies going

A manager at a Fresh Hippo Neighbor Business store in Minhang District chose to sleep inside the store and eat instant noodles for five days to ensure food supplies for the neighborhood when it went into lockdown.

Gu Jiangli, manager of the Shenbei Road branch, brought with her some spare clothes and a negative nucleic acid test report, to the store before lockdown.

"On the first day I was too cold and woke up several times. Thank goodness the next day a friend of mine sent me a quilt," Gu recalled.

"Then came the exponential growth of orders at the store. Starting from March 10, the number of daily orders at the store was more than 100, then 800 then 1,200 items."

Customers used to pick up goods themselves. During the lockdown, they asked Gu if the goods could be delivered to the gate of their neighborhoods and Gu responded "yes."

"People are waiting for their food," she said.

She embraced her busy schedule: Getting up at 4-5am to sort the goods; packing customers' food before 8am for delivery; double-checking addresses and delivery times with customers who had made orders the previous day.

She then delivered the food on her moped, five or six orders per ride and 20 or 30 rides daily.

At the end of her daily schedule, Gu had her "dinner" of the day – a bowl of instant noodles.