Mass-market snack "dual strength" net profit growth reaches triple digits by 2025, with industry development in a new phase focusing on "quality improvement and efficiency enhancement."

Goodbye to the simple practice of “rushing to grab territory.” The qualitative shift from “expansion” to “profitability” is reshaping the development landscape for value snack retail chains. Miming Laohuang is busy cross-referencing the financial report data of Wencheng Group, reflecting the synchronized strategic logic the industry is showcasing—“improving quality and efficiency.”

Recently, two listed companies—Miming Laohuang, whose main business is value snack retail, and Wencheng Group—have completed their financial report disclosures. Among them, Miming Laohuang achieved operating revenue of RMB 66.17B in 2025, up 68.2% year over year. In the same period, Wencheng Group’s operating revenue was RMB 51.46B, up 59.17% year over year, and the revenue from its value snack retail business reached RMB 50.86B, up 59.98%.

Compared with the double-digit revenue growth rates, the two companies’ net profits recorded in 2025 show a more pronounced three-digit percentage increase. According to the financial reports, Miming Laohuang’s net profit was RMB 2.33B, up 180.9% year over year; adjusted net profit was RMB 2.69B, up 194.9% year over year. In addition, Wencheng Group’s net profit attributable to shareholders was RMB 1.35B, up 358.09% year over year. Its net profit for the full year after adding back the share-based payment expenses accrued for the value snack retail business was RMB 2.53B.

Improvements in gross margin also indicate that companies’ profitability continues to strengthen. According to Miming Laohuang’s financial report, the company’s gross margin increased from 7.6% for the year ended December 31, 2024 to 9.8% for the year ended December 31, 2025. This increase was mainly due to a rise in the gross profit from the group’s merchandise sales—from RMB 2.87B to RMB 6.11B. The merchandise sales gross margin rose from 7.3% to 9.3%, mainly attributable to the scale economies resulting from the expansion of the group’s business scale and strengthened cost management capabilities.

In its financial report, Wencheng Group pointed out that, taking merchandise as an example, the company has continued to deepen its efforts in merchandise procurement and category management. It has established broad and close business cooperation relationships with major food and beverage brands both in China and abroad, and its gross margin performance has continued to improve. In 2025, the gross margin of its value snack retail business was 12.32%, up 1.46 percentage points year over year.

According to a research note from Everbright Securities, in terms of profitability, how much the gross margin can further rise is crucial. From the “product development logic” perspective, to look at net profit room, it is expected that the increase in the share of “customized products and private-label products” with higher gross margins in the future will be the core lever for improving overall gross margin.

The core logic driving the thickening of profits is in line with the current theme of value snack retail’s “improving quality and efficiency” stage. According to a research note from CICC, during the Snacks Value Retail 1.0 stage (rapid growth period), the market shows the characteristics of regional fragmentation. During the Snacks Value Retail 2.0 stage (competitive consolidation period), from 2022 to 2024, market consolidation accelerated, and leading players used their advantages in capital, brands, and scale to accelerate market consolidation. By the Snacks Value Retail 3.0 stage, the industry landscape has basically taken shape, entering a development stage that requires optimizing store operations and improving supply-chain efficiency. At this point for future outlook, the development trend of value snack retail will closely follow iterative upgrades to the single-store model, as well as the supply-chain side layout of private labels.

On private-label brand development, Hao Xiang Lai also stated that since it launched its private-label brands in 2025, as of mid-March, Hao Xiang Lai’s private-label assortment already includes nearly 40 SKUs, mainly covering categories such as beverages, puffed snacks, and daily necessities.

Breaking down the opportunity enablement approach, the report “A Brief Analysis Report on the Value Snack Retail Industry in 2025” by Jiashe Consulting points out that giants in value snack retail are evolving from “selling other people’s goods” to “making their own products.” Traditional general-brand items typically have low gross margins, but once the brand scale surpasses 10k stores, developing private labels by directly connecting with factories—or even building production lines in-house—can effectively improve gross margins. In addition, private labels better enable control of ingredient lists (e.g., reducing sugar and making products healthier), meeting the mainstream healthy consumption trends for 2026. As for improving supply-chain efficiency, the core competitiveness of value snack retail lies in “streamlining the supply chain.” Through a flattened model of “factory—central warehouse—stores,” the overall markup rate can be reduced significantly, far lower than traditional KA (key account) venues. Leading companies optimize their supply chains through digital technologies, further lowering costs. This not only passes the efficiency gains on to consumers, but also brings companies “cost advantages.”

Supply-chain advantages are also pieces that more brands are scrambling to complete. Among them, Snack Selection announced at the end of February this year that it has reached an all-round deep strategic cooperation with Huitongda Network, an HK-listed company. The two sides will establish a joint venture company as the sole operating entity for the “Snack Selection” branded chain, fully integrating high-quality resources of the brand and the platform to jointly accelerate the rollout of high-speed growth snack retail chains and hard-discount markets. Relying on Huitongda’s proprietary industry vertical large model “Qiancheng Cloud AI” and related AI Agent applications, the joint venture can quickly deploy advanced digital tools. Huitongda has already successfully achieved commercialization and deployment of AI in retail chain scenarios. In the future, it will help Snack Selection’s 2,800 stores realize end-to-end digitization—from intelligent merchandising selection, warehousing and distribution logistics, to store operations and community marketing—across the whole chain.

“Currently, the company is in a scale expansion stage, while continuously promoting upgrades to supply-chain resilience, building a smart logistics system, implementing brand mindshare projects, flattening the organizational structure, and constructing an all-domain data middle platform.” Wencheng Group’s financial report also states that in 2025, Wencheng Group added 4,720 new stores, reduced 602 stores, and ended the year with 18,314 stores.

Also, according to a statement by Miming Laohuang, as of the end of 2025, the total number of stores under Miming Laohuang’s “Snacks Are Busy” and “Zhao Yiming Snacks” brands reached 21,948, covering 30 provinces nationwide and all city tiers. Of these, about 60% are located in counties and towns.

Despite the ongoing increase in store-network density, considering future industry challenges, the “A Brief Analysis Report on the Value Snack Retail Industry in 2025” also indicates that value snack retail may simultaneously face the risk of foot-traffic diversion from community stores in other formats undergoing transformation—for example, bakery shops (new-style baking, 50–80 square meters), fresh tea drink outlets (community stores sinking like Mixi Xuecheng, etc.). These formats are accelerating their transformation into nearby community scenarios, competing for residents’ daily routes with “small but dense” store placement. The “scenario overlap” of such competing products (such as community e-commerce) may still divert the “stock-up at home” customer traffic of value snack retail. In addition, because consumers’ recognition of brands still remains at the stage of “where to buy cheaper,” rather than “non-availability without a specific brand,” the high degree of product homogeneity will also lead to a lack of brand loyalty.

Regarding measures to further enhance brand competitiveness, Miming Laohuang stated in its financial report that it will systematically upgrade the store network; iterate products proactively around market demand; continuously optimize and upgrade the supply-chain system; improve digital capabilities to raise management efficiency; and further increase marketing efforts and strengthen the group’s brand influence.

“The Group will adhere to a standardized product selection decision-making mechanism covering initial screening, trial tasting, trial selling, and promotion, maintaining a new-product cadence of hundreds of products on average each month. Moreover, it will further deepen product curation and customization around user needs. Through cooperation with manufacturers, it will conduct customized development in terms of flavors, packaging and/or specifications, and—together with methods such as small-pack packaging and loose-weighted products—continuously reduce the threshold for trying new items and enhance the ability to supply differentiated products.” Miming Laohuang emphasized in its financial report.

Wencheng Group also said that in 2026, the company will focus on maintaining high-quality development and help the market share rise steadily. It will broaden the depth and breadth of its supply chain upstream; focus deeply on store operations downstream; strive to achieve a closed-loop path of “insights into demand—co-creation of products—rapid launch,” strengthen operational and marketing strategies and resource empowerment for franchise stores, help stores improve operating management, and build a sustainable profitable growth model.

It is worth noting that themed stores are one of the paths for Hao Xiang Lai’s innovative store marketing. “Hao Xiang Lai focuses on providing consumers with ‘emotional value.’ Whether it was the earlier Crayon Shin-chan themed stores, or the Hanfu-themed stores in Handan at the beginning of this year, fundamentally they are responding to everyone’s longing for a better shopping experience. In the future, we will continue to center on this core and continue bringing everyone more interesting shopping experiences.” A relevant person in charge at Hao Xiang Lai said.

From broad layout to a resilient, hard-charging offensive, value snack retail is going through a critical transition stage of “building barriers.” In an environment where single-line strategies are difficult to sustain, it is only possible to outperform the cycle with a set of diversified hard capabilities—including efficiency and innovation.

Editor / Wang Can, Lin Chen

(Compiled from Miming Laohuang, Wencheng Group, CICC, Everbright Securities, Jiashe Consulting, etc.)

(Editor: Wang Can)

Keywords:

                                                            Food
                                                            Retail
                                                            Miming Laohuang Group