Two SF Express employees sort packages in an SF warehouse in Guiyang, Southwest China's Guizhou Province, on February 8. Photo: cnsphotos

It was on Monday reported that Chinese express courier company SF Express had joined the online food delivery market with the launch of its "Feng Shi" program, which allows companies to order group meals for their employees.

In response, the company told the Global Times that its food delivery program is only open to orders from within the company and has not yet been launched to the public.

The service aims to provide collective reservations, centralized and contactless safe delivery for corporate employees. 

Over 100 chain restaurants have thus far joined the platform. 

The program's order page and process is similar to those of Meituan-Dianping and Ele.me, two other leading Chinese food delivery platforms. In addition to group meals, users can also place orders for single meals. The platform supports self-collection and rapid delivery.

There is a chance SF may break the food delivery market currently monopolized by Meituan-Dianping and Ele.me, Zhu Danpeng, a food industry analyst, told the Global times on Monday.

"SF Express has its own advantages and clients in the express delivery industry. The food delivery industry is also strongly related to its own business. It may start with group meal delivery and then push into the individual food delivery market," Zhu said.

Meituan-Dianping and Ele.me have the highest usage rates, according to the DCCI Internet Data Center. Data shows that 67.1 percent of food delivery platform users order through Meituan-Dianping, and 32.2 percent of users order through Ele.me.

According to iiMedia Research the scale of the Chinese group meal market hit 1.5 trillion yuan ($211.94 billion) in 2019, accounting for 33.23 percent of the entire catering market. It is expected that the total scale of the market will reach 1.69 trillion yuan in 2020 and account for up to 35 percent of the catering market in 2020.