Alibaba delivery deal could be a tasty side dish

Hong Kong

ALIBABA'S food-delivery roadmap is starting to look a little less grubby. The Chinese e-commerce titan is working on a plan to buy the roughly three-quarters of Ele.me - which transports meals from restaurants to homes - that it doesn't already own. Doing such a deal simply to challenge Chinese tech outfit Meituan Dianping would be a costly endeavour, but if it can enhance Alibaba's payments, grocery and parcel operations it makes more sense.

The business of delivering prepared meals is growing quickly in China. Last summer, Meituan Dianping was projecting some 300 billion …