Three years of 65x growth! Wanchen Group's ten-thousand store franchise—manage it well, and it will grow even bigger and last longer?

Produced by | Zhongfang Network

Reviewed by | Li Xiaoyan

Crossing over from the edible fungus sector to bulk snacks, in less than three years, Wancheng Group (300972.SZ) has achieved a leap from a niche player to a national retail leader. As of the end of June 2025, the total number of stores under its core brand “Haoxianglai” surpassed 15,000, with franchise stores accounting for 99.4%. Revenue jumped from less than 1 billion yuan in 2022 to 36.562 billion yuan in the first three quarters of 2025, and net profit attributable to shareholders rose significantly to 855 million yuan, with full-year performance forecasts for 2025 setting new records. Amid rapid expansion and a franchise-led model, the market’s focus on its management capabilities continues to intensify, while Wancheng Group is paving a path of development that balances scale and quality through practices rooted in supply chain building, digital empowerment, and full-link control, establishing a new benchmark for stable large-scale operations in the bulk snacks industry.

Wancheng Group’s explosive growth coincided with a dual bonus period of domestic hard discount retail and upgrading consumer demand in lower-tier markets. In 2023, the company integrated regional brands such as Laiyoupin, Yadiyadi, and Luxiaochan, unifying them under “Haoxianglai,” with a low-threshold policy of “0 franchise fees, 0 management fees, 0 delivery fees” to quickly activate social entrepreneurial resources, achieving a leap in store network from 232 at the end of 2022 to 15,365 by mid-2025, growing over 65 times. This light-asset franchise model is not merely about simple scale expansion but is based on an ecological construction of win-win logic: the company does not rely on franchise fees for profit but instead derives income through direct sourcing from the supply chain, logistics fulfillment, and product operations, allowing franchisees to focus on store management, forming a community of shared interests. Data shows that in the first half of 2025, the closure rate of franchise stores was only 1.9%, far below the industry average, with franchisee satisfaction exceeding 97%, confirming the health and sustainability of the model.

The confidence behind the rapid growth comes from the full-link supply chain barrier that Wancheng Group has built. Relying on the cold chain logistics and standardized control experience accumulated from the edible fungus business, the company quickly established a nationwide warehousing and distribution network, laying out 51 ambient warehouses and 13 cold chain warehouses, achieving over 90% of stores receiving replenishment the next day (“T+1”) and controlling logistics costs to within 3%, far lower than the industry average of 8%-12%. On the product side, the company implements a direct sourcing model for over 95% of its products, bypassing multiple intermediaries and establishing ODM custom partnerships with leading brands and quality factories. Leveraging its scale in stores to gain bargaining power, it has reduced end prices by 20%-30% compared to market averages, while ensuring product quality and stable supply. From shortening inventory turnover days to 12 days, to achieving a single-store sales efficiency 2.6 times that of traditional retail, the extreme optimization of supply chain efficiency provides core competitiveness for franchise stores and has deeply ingrained the brand perception of “low price but high quality.”

Facing the management challenges of 99.4% franchise stores, Wancheng Group has built a refined management system through digitization and standardization to solve the governance problems of large-scale franchising. The company has developed an intelligent retail system that covers the entire process from site selection, ordering, inventory, cash register, to membership, allowing headquarters to monitor store operational data in real-time and provide timely warnings of operational risks. In terms of support for franchisees, the company offers full lifecycle services, from intelligent site assessment, unified decoration design, to employee training and operational supervision, forming a standardized implementation loop that ensures a high degree of uniformity in brand image, service processes, and quality control standards across all stores nationwide. For the operational details of stores, the company has established a supplier grading management, product quality inspection traceability, and store inspection mechanisms, controlling quality throughout the entire chain from upstream procurement to terminal sales, extending the management radius to every single store.

Industry development patterns show that after rapid expansion, there will inevitably be an adjustment period focused on quality improvement and efficiency enhancement. Wancheng Group has also proactively slowed the pace of expansion, focusing on improving operational quality. In the first half of 2025, the net increase in stores returned to a rational pace, with a slight rise in the number of store closures, which is essentially a normal phenomenon of the industry transitioning from wild growth to healthy iteration, and is also the company’s proactive choice to optimize the store network and eliminate inefficient stores. Chain operation experts point out that the bulk snack retail format faces multi-faceted competition, while Wancheng Group continues to consolidate its core advantages through format updates, product iterations, and service upgrades, gradually alleviating the pressure on single-store profitability. For the temporary issues related to terminal services and quality control, the company responded quickly and made closed-loop rectifications, issuing public apologies for the involved stores, strengthening employees’ awareness of legal compliance and service standards training, turning problems into opportunities for management upgrades, and demonstrating the responsibility and commitment of a leading enterprise.

While achieving high growth in performance, Wancheng Group’s long-term value is continuously being released. In 2025, the company is expected to achieve operating revenue of 50 billion to 52.8 billion yuan, and a net profit attributable to shareholders of 1.23 billion to 1.4 billion yuan, representing a year-on-year growth of over 220%, with the bulk snack business becoming the core engine of performance. As a company aiming to be the “first stock in bulk snacks” on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, its capitalization process will further empower supply chain upgrades, digital construction, and brand building, forming a positive cycle of “scale expansion - efficiency improvement - profit growth - value feedback.” From deep coverage in county markets to a balanced layout nationwide, from value-for-money products to differentiated proprietary brands, and from franchise expansion to refined operations, Wancheng Group is completing its transformation from “scale champion” to “quality leader.”

Returning to the essence of retail, Wancheng Group’s growth story is a microcosm of the efficiency revolution and model innovation in China’s chain retail industry. The 99.4% franchise store ratio is not a burden of management, but an ecological advantage; the challenges of scale expansion are not bottlenecks for development, but rather the driving force for upgrades. The company, based on the supply chain, leveraging digitization, and adhering to a win-win philosophy, achieves a balance between standardized control and personalized services at the scale of thousands of stores, maintaining brand reputation and consumer rights amid rapid development. In the future, as the consumer market continues to recover and industry concentration continues to rise, Wancheng Group is expected to leverage its mature franchise ecosystem, extreme operational efficiency, and firm determination to improve quality, to continue leading the bulk snack sector, responding to market expectations with stable performance and a responsible brand image.

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