(Yicai Global) Nov. 20 -- Meituan Dianping, China's biggest online meal delivery platform, plans to expand its chain of offline fresh food stores by opening nine of them in the country's southern tech hub Shenzhen this afternoon, Caijing Magazine's LatePost reported.

Several of China's biggest tech and e-commerce firms have been opening offline stores for fresh food in recent years, including Alibaba's Hema Fresh. Meituan opened its first such shop in Beijing in 2017.