More than 140 containers of stewed bamboo shoots have found their way to Shanghai, a city experiencing a shortage of supplies including food due to disrupted logistics caused by a severe COVID-19 outbreak.

Along with the local delicacies sent to the Shanghai Charity Foundation was an anonymous letter, written by a retired teacher from Fenghua in Shanghai's adjacent province of Zhejiang.

The author of the letter said he grew up in Shanghai and left the city in 1962 to move to the countryside in Fenghua and became a rural teacher.

"This is the 60th year of my departure from Shanghai. The city has been always in my mind. I have a deep affection for it."

After the latest COVID-19 wave in Shanghai, the benefactor decided to "repay the city and the people who raised me."

After learning vegetables were being transported to Shanghai, the donor got up before 5 am one day and dug more than 150 kg of bamboo shoots.