(Yicai Global) April 11 -- Leading Chinese shopping and logistics companies are stepping up to keep Shanghai residents fed during the eastern city's lockdown due to new Covid-19 outbreaks.

"We will continue increasing our efforts in providing more resources in necessity delivery," said Senior Vice President Xiao Shuixian at Alibaba Group Holding's Ele.me. The e-commerce behemoth's food delivery unit deployed 2,800 new delivery workers in the past week to bridge the gap between the "last kilometer" and the "last 100 meters," Xiao added.

The phased lockdown has lasted for two weeks in the country's most populous city as case numbers continue to rise.

On-demand service giant Meituan's grocery shopping platform Meituan Maicai deployed nearly 1,000 skilled sorting workers from outside of Shanghai to help solve the insufficient sorting and distribution capacity, the Beijing-based firm said to Yicai Global.

Li Xia, a sorter from Wuhan, told Yicai Global that she had already organized nearly 100 orders as of yesterday morning. She had started working immediately after arriving in Shanghai.

Ele.me has managed to deliver supplies to communities in lockdown through its community group purchasing method, said Xiao. Such orders have doubled every day in the past few days, the SVP added.

The service involves meals and groceries. Communities can order meals together and that service covers more than 1,000 communities, according to Xiao. The grocery service arm has delivered foodstuff, including meat, eggs, and milk to more than 25,000 families in Shanghai's Pudong New Area, he added.

Online shopping platform JD.Com has prepared more than 16 million bundles of rice, flour, grain, and oil for Shanghai residents, Vice President Wang Wenbo said at a press conference yesterday. The items could last for a month, he added.

The first batch of JD.Com supplies arrived in Shanghai by a special logistics truck. The batch included more than 80,000 items of maternal and baby care supplies, over 100,000 units of medical and epidemic prevention supplies, and 10 tons of mutton from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Currently, JD.Com's stock of grain, meat, and seafood products is two or three times above the usual levels while prevention and sterile products can guarantee 18 days of demand, said Wang.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi