“Internet plus” has contributed to radical changes of food supplies and consumption patterns in China. This called for a need to fill the legislative-regulatory vacuum of online food business while promoting digital economic development. While the rise of large-scale platforms constitutes a challenge for such regulation, those platforms also bring about regulatory innovation by taking advantage of self-regulation and co-regulation.This paper analyses the role of online platforms and aims to provide an insight into the development of online food regulation in China, which may subsequently contribute to the establishment of common principles for online food regulation, in particular, and internet regulation, in general. Keywords: internet regulation; platform; online food; food safety; China.