Alibaba eyes revamp in food sector

After taking the lion's share of China's e-commerce sector, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is looking to revamp the food sector by addressing the imbalance between supply and demand.

Hema Fresh, its iconic fresh food chain that employs technologies to dispatch goods and manage inventory, plans to open stores across all first and second-tier cities in China and aims to reach at least 300 million consumers.

The goal was announced at last week's vendor conference in Shanghai, where Hema forged partnerships with over 500 merchants including agriculture produce bases, and pledged not to charge any fees as prerequisites for brands to access Hema.