Gianmarco Meli from Italy enjoys his life in China with a food business. [Photo provided to China Daily]

"A guy from eastern China who lived in Tibet for eight years has been very eager to share the culture and food," Meli says. He arranges air shipments as often as daily in peak season－dairy products as well as truffles.

"We can get yak cheese and yogurt all year, but fresh milk only for about nine months－May to January. In the winter it's just too cold for the animals to produce enough milk," he says.

Meli is working with another guy in Shanghai who is making his own cheese, and hopes that leads to a new feature on GroupMall: organic cheese-making classes.

In an online endorsement, customer K, who regularly buys sausages, lamb, beef, cheese from GroupMall, writes that "products arrive frozen and well-packaged in polystyrene boxes at home on weekends or at the office during weekdays."

Ease of ordering is important, says Meli, adding that the goal is for customers to get what they want in just three clicks at www.groupmallchina.com.

Sourcing some goodies can be more complicated at his end－such as organizing a recent shipment of live lobsters from Canada, or coping with regulations to import something that has not been imported before.

Customers, meanwhile, are naturally concerned with food safety.

Meli likes to find organic products that are local and fresh, noting that produce begins to lose nutritional value from the day it's harvested.

But he says simply relying on "organic" products is not a perfect answer, and he looks for balance.

"In some ways, certified organic products can be less eco-friendly," he says. They consume a lot of water and other resources－and in areas where air pollution is a problem, rain water can contain toxic elements that may not be so good for us."