The Chinese food delivery market is largely dominated by two companies, namely Meituan and Alibaba’s Ele.me. Credit: Jon Russell / Flickr (Creative Commons).

ByteDance-owned Douyin, the Chinese version of short video app TikTok, is reportedly testing a food delivery feature as local economies emerge from Covid-19-related lockdowns.

According to the South China Morning Post, the Douyin channels of some restaurants will now provide an option allowing users to place food delivery orders.

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The restaurants will deploy their own staff or partner with other entities to deliver orders, the publication added, citing a report from state-owned media The Paper.

A Douyin representative was quoted as saying: “Douyin’s life service team is carrying out activities to help businesses recover in some cities.”

The move marks Douyin’s second foray into the food delivery space.

Last year, it trialled a food delivery service called Xindong Waimai that opened within the app. However, it did not proceed with a general rollout of the product.

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The publication added that some quick-service restaurant chains, such as KFC and HeyTea, already provide delivery services through the Douyin app on their own initiative.

Notably, the number of food deliveries soared during the pandemic, as people switched to placing online orders amid lockdown periods. Currently, the Chinese food delivery market is largely dominated by two companies, namely Meituan and Alibaba’s Ele.me.

Earlier in the year, coffeehouse chain Starbucks entered a partnership with Meituan to strengthen its footprint in China.

The collaboration allowed customers to use the Meituan app to place delivery orders as well as book tables at Starbucks stores.