Food Tech in Asia 2026: Meituan, Grab & Lab Meat

Asian food tech in 2026 is a study in extremes. In China, the three internet giants burned more than $14 billion fighting a food-delivery price war in just two quarters. In Southeast Asia, Grab finally turned its first full-year net profit after a decade of losses. And in Singapore, the world’s first regulator to approve lab-grown meat keeps green-lighting cultivated products faster than the US or EU. From the cut-throat economics of delivery to the frontier of cultivated protein, the most consequential things happening in food are happening in Asia. Here’s the state of the sector.

How big is Asia’s food delivery market?

Enormous, and still growing double digits. Southeast Asia’s food-delivery GMV hit $22.7 billion in 2025, up 18%, with all six major markets growing double digits and Thailand fastest at around 22% (Momentum Works). China is the world’s largest food-delivery market by a wide margin, on a scale heading toward half a trillion dollars in the broader instant-commerce category.

The structural story is consolidation around a few dominant platforms — and, finally, profitability. The era of subsidy-fuelled, loss-making growth is giving way to disciplined operators, with Grab the clearest proof that the model can make money. For the quick-commerce crossover into groceries, see our piece on India’s quick-commerce boom.

Why is there a food delivery price war in China?

Because the giants decided market share was worth billions in losses. In early 2025, JD.com entered food delivery with 10 billion yuan in subsidies, triggering an all-out war with Meituan and Alibaba’s Ele.me. The result was carnage: Meituan, Alibaba and JD burned more than 100 billion yuan (around $14 billion) in combined costs across just the second and third quarters of 2025 (TechNode). Meituan — the world’s largest local-services platform, with FY2024 revenue of 337.6 billion yuan and over 770 million annual users — posted its largest quarterly operating loss since listing, around $2.7 billion in Q3 2025. Regulators eventually forced a public truce.

Meituan’s more interesting move is abroad. Its international brand Keeta hit around 750,000 daily orders within four months of launching in Riyadh and has committed $1 billion over five years to enter Brazil. The Chinese delivery model — dense, fast, ruthlessly efficient — is now an export.

How did Grab become profitable?

By outlasting everyone else. Grab posted its first-ever full-year net profit — roughly $200 million — in 2025, on revenue of $3.37 billion (up 20%), after a $158 million net loss the year before (Grab). It now commands about 55% of Southeast Asia’s food-delivery GMV, the clear regional leader. Notably, ShopeeFood overtook both Gojek’s GoFood and Delivery Hero’s Foodpanda to become a top-three platform — a reminder that Sea Group’s e-commerce muscle translates into food.

It’s worth being precise: Grab was not profitable in 2024, when it posted a loss; the milestone is full-year 2025. The turn matters because it validates the whole super-app thesis — that bundling rides, delivery and payments into one app eventually produces the scale economics that standalone delivery never could.

What is Singapore’s role in cultivated meat?

It’s the global regulatory pioneer, and the standout story in Asian food tech. Singapore became the first country in the world to approve the commercial sale of cultivated meat — Eat Just’s lab-grown chicken — in December 2020, then approved the world’s first serum-free cultivated meat in 2023. It remains the fastest-approving regulator for cultivated products anywhere, clearing them in roughly half the time of the US or EU, with approvals spanning cultivated chicken, quail and duck.

This is Singapore being Singapore: a small market using regulatory clarity and speed to make itself the indispensable hub for an emerging industry — the same playbook it runs in finance and, as we’ve covered, in gaming. The cultivated-meat sector is still tiny and far from cost-competitive, but if it ever scales, the regulatory infrastructure was built in Singapore first.

How do Japan and Korea fit in?

Both are large, mature delivery markets with their own dramatic competitive shake-ups. In South Korea, the story is an upset: Coupang Eats roughly doubled its market share to around 35% in 2024, vaulting past the long-dominant Baemin (whose share fell from over 70% toward the high 50s) on the back of free-delivery perks bundled into Coupang’s Wow membership — the same e-commerce-flywheel logic that built ShopeeFood in Southeast Asia (Korea JoongAng Daily). Coupang then took the playbook abroad, re-entering Japan in January 2025 with a Rocket Now delivery service.

Japan itself is a cautionary tale about delivery economics. Uber Eats leads with around 57% share, with Demae-can second around 36% — but Demae-can, despite the backing of SoftBank and LINE Yahoo, saw its shares collapse roughly 97% from their peak, a brutal illustration that even in a wealthy market, food delivery’s thin margins punish anyone who can’t reach profitable scale. Japan’s appetite for delivery never matched the West’s or China’s, and the market has consolidated hard around the players who could absorb the losses.

What else counts as food tech in Asia?

Beyond delivery, two areas stand out. Cloud kitchens — delivery-only kitchens with no dine-in — are led globally by India’s Rebel Foods, the world’s largest operator with over 450 kitchens across India, the Middle East, Indonesia and the UK, running brands like Behrouz Biryani and Faasos. And kitchen and restaurant automation is accelerating across the region’s quick-service restaurants, which are cutting labour reliance as costs rise. The self-service ordering layer — POS, kiosks, app ordering and aggregator integration for chains like Subway and Burger King — is being built by specialists such as Aigens across Asia, while at the frontier, firms like Hyper are building fully autonomous robotic fast-food units for global F&B brands. Restaurant SaaS, POS systems and AI-driven operations round out a food-tech stack that extends well past the delivery app most consumers see.

Frequently asked questions

How big is Southeast Asia’s food delivery market?

Southeast Asia’s food-delivery GMV reached $22.7 billion in 2025, up 18%, with all six major markets growing double digits (Momentum Works). Grab leads with about 55% regional share.

Why are Chinese tech companies losing money on food delivery?

A price war. JD.com entered food delivery in early 2025 with 10 billion yuan in subsidies, triggering a battle with Meituan and Alibaba’s Ele.me. The three burned over 100 billion yuan (~$14 billion) in combined costs across two quarters of 2025, pushing Meituan to its largest quarterly operating loss since listing.

Is Grab profitable?

Yes, as of full-year 2025 — Grab posted its first-ever full-year net profit of roughly $200 million on $3.37 billion in revenue, after a $158 million loss in 2024. It leads Southeast Asian food delivery with about 55% GMV share.

Which country first approved lab-grown meat?

Singapore — it became the first country in the world to approve the commercial sale of cultivated meat (Eat Just’s lab-grown chicken) in December 2020, and remains the fastest-approving regulator for cultivated products globally.

What is the biggest cloud kitchen company in Asia?

India’s Rebel Foods is the world’s largest cloud-kitchen operator, running over 450 delivery-only kitchens across India, the Middle East, Indonesia and the UK, with brands including Behrouz Biryani, Faasos and Oven Story.

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