(Yicai Global) Sept. 9 -- Shanghai put its breakfast collaboration project into action today in a bid to get residents to eat a more varied breakfast and support local businesses.

The campaign encourages 24 local operators of central kitchens, including Shanghai’s largest food maker Bright Food Group, to freely combine and develop shared menus to increase breakfast options. Together, they can come up with 921 different types of breakfasts, 301 of which are already available on the shelves.

Hema Fresh, the grocery unit of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding, is now serving salads and healthy porridge from Bright Food as well as crispy Chinese pancakes from Liang Food, Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce told Yicai Global today.

The breakfast collaboration project enables central kitchen companies to make full use of their existing production capacity to increase revenue, and at the same time allows citizens to taste foods from different brands in a single store, said Hua Yuan, director of the Municipal Commission of Commerce.

The campaign also promotes mobile canteens and self-pick-up food lockers. The city has added temporary parking spots during breakfast hours.

Bright Food plans to put eight mobile canteens into operation by the middle of the month and 20 by the end of the month. The firm is also talking with local communities near parking lots to improve supporting facilities and to train more personnel.

Editor: Kim Taylor