Liang Yiwen/Shanghai Daily news

Standardized Chinese food with no offal, chicken or fish bones, will be served in restaurants at Expo 2010.

The Shanghai Restaurant Association told Shanghai Daily yesterday that more than 50 catering companies were working on a standard menu.

"Chinese fast food will mainly be sold on the scene at Expo while Chinese business meals will be provided at restaurants near the site," said Duan Fugen, secretary of the association.

Chinese food usually appears on dozens of dishes on a round table in big restaurants, while standardized Chinese fast food and business meals are still not common in the country, which faces the challenge of catering for 70 million visitors over the six months of the Expo.

The association will organize more than 50 catering company officials and chefs to select standardized food which best represents Chinese cuisine.

More than 40 sets of Chinese business meals have been nominated, and experts are now judging them.

"Standardized Chinese food should be easy to eat and carry, and comply with the eating habits of visitors from all over the world," Duan said. "Standardized food will not contain fish bones or chicken bones to make it easy to eat, and no internal organs will appear to respect the habits of foreign visitors.

"Chinese snack foods are delicious and nutritious but they are usually wrapped in coarse packaging, making them inconvenient to carry and causing an unsanitary image," Duan said.

He disclosed that the packaging of Chinese snack food would be upgraded and standardized before 2010.