(Yicai Global) May 10 -- China's second-largest e-commerce player JD.Com Inc. will team up with Shandong Delisi Food Co., one of the country's largest meat processors, to stock the firm's branded products at its first offline high-tech supermarket '7Fresh' in Beijing.

Delisi will also open a flagship shop on JD's e-commerce platform and cooperate with its delivery unit JDLogistics to provide frozen and fresh meat products, the Shandong-province-based firm said in a statement.

Major e-commerce firms in China such as JD and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. have actively expanded their offline markets in recent years in the name of New Retail, a term coined by Alibaba founder Jack Ma in 2016 to describe the formation of a single value chain encompassing online, offline, logistics and data. The competitive fresh food sector is just one area attracting investment so far this year, with Alibaba's Hema Fresh already gaining a strong foothold in the premium produce sector. 

The pair will cooperate to develop more products suitable for the e-commerce platform and JD's convenient stores so as to meet customers' demand. They will also join hands in brand promotion, said the announcement. 

Editors: Emmi Laine, William Clegg