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Burnaby's busiest food app wins big for entrepreneurial spirit

It started as a side project for a student at SFU and has grown into a business spread around North America.
fantuan app two
Randy Wu (left) and Feng Yaofei, founders of Fantuan, have based their company out of Burnaby. Chris Campbell photo

It started as a side project for a student at SFU and has grown into a business spread around North America.

Now Fantuan is one of the Burnaby businesses being honoured by the Burnaby Board of Trade at the 21th annual Burnaby Business Excellence Awards, announced at a livestreamed event. 

Fantuan food delivery was founded in 2014 and, according to its mission statement, it’s designed to make “overseas Chinese people’s life easier.”

From small origins, it’s the “largest Chinese delivery platform in Canada,” according to the company, with more than 200,000 registered users, 100,000-plus orders each month and more than 1,800 business partners.

Not bad for a company started by a SFU student while he was still in school. Randy Wu actually quit school while he was just two terms away from graduation.

Today, the BBoT has honoured Fantuan with its entrepreneurial spirit award.

The annual awards program, presented jointly by the City of Burnaby and the Burnaby Board of Trade, recognizes leading businesses and not-for-profit organizations in Burnaby for their success, innovation, community involvement, and environmental sustainability.

Ten awards were presented recognizing excellence in business success, community engagement, entrepreneurship, environmental sustainability and innovation amongst Burnaby’s businesses and non-profits. 

In addition, a special award was presented to local business legend Peter Legge and Canada Wide Media as they were inducted into the Burnaby Business Hall of Fame, only the 18th such business to be given that honour ever.
“Every year at these awards we are impressed by the diversity, creativity and achievements of our business community, and despite the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19 this year was no different,” said Paul Holden, president and CEO of the BBoT, in a statement. “Burnaby is a tremendous place to do business, a strategic place to locate any company, and today only served to highlight the strength of our business sector.”
The annual awards event was presented as a hybrid live/digital event combining in-person presentations, pre-recorded messages, and live-on-location video to create a safe, digital experience for the hundreds of participants. 

“Putting on the awards program this year given the number of restrictions on events was challenging, but we felt it was crucial to find a way to recognize the hard work of our business community. I’m thrilled we were able to once again show how you can safely create shared experiences like this despite the pandemic, and that business can and should go on,” said Holden. 
The recipients of the 2020 Burnaby Business Excellence Awards are:
Award Category:
Business of the Year: Beedie Development
Business of the Year (up to 50 employees): Integra Eyecare Centre
Business Person of the Year: Rizwan Somji, Cymax Group
Not For Profit Organization of the Year: Burnaby Hospital Foundation
Burnaby Citizen Champion: Sangeeta Bhonsale

Entrepreneurial Spirit: Fantuan
Burnaby Community Spirit: Allteck
Business Innovation: Advanced Intelligent Systems
Healthy Workplace: Para Space Landscaping

Environmental Sustainability: Electronic Arts