Weilong Teams Up with Times Youth League: The Youthful Engine Behind 7.2 Billion in Revenue

Source: Times Weekly Report Author: Jie Bin

On April 2nd, Weilong officially announced that the Times Youth League became the global brand ambassador. As soon as the news broke, fans immediately created memes and secondary videos that flooded major platforms. When the young demographic takes up the banner of spicy snack foods, spicy strips have gradually become a staple for daily social interactions and emotional satisfaction among young people. This classic category is quietly evolving, and Weilong is continuously expanding the boundaries of spicy strips through a youth-oriented campaign.

Undoubtedly, the Times Youth League is a top-tier idol in the hearts of young people. Their becoming Weilong’s global brand ambassador signifies a major step forward in Weilong’s brand youthfulness.

As a leader in the spicy snack industry, understanding consumer needs is an essential capability to maintain core competitiveness. By 2025, Weilong’s revenue will exceed 7.2 billion yuan, with a net profit of 1.4 billion yuan, achieving double growth in revenue and profit, outperforming the overall snack food market, and becoming a benchmark company. What kind of youth-oriented strategic layout does Weilong have behind this success?

Brand Youthfulness: The Double Overlay of Top-Tier Momentum

On April 2nd, Weilong launched a “Every Second Must Be Awesome” TVC in collaboration with the Times Youth League, which went viral across major platforms. Offline, Weilong partnered with the Times Youth League to showcase strong images in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu, Hangzhou, and Zhengzhou. Outdoor large screens combined with regional features repeatedly bombarded viewers, covering every corner of the city with Weilong’s spicy and refreshing message.

Regarding Weilong’s partnership with the Times Youth League, beyond traffic driving sales, the more important value lies in brand expression. As a national brand that has been deeply rooted in the industry for over twenty years, Weilong needs ambassadors not just for traffic, but to build more consumption channels with young consumers.

As a representative of Generation Z idols, the Times Youth League continuously pushes boundaries on stage, earning widespread recognition through their professional skills and consistent pursuit of excellence. Their unwavering commitment to quality aligns highly with Weilong’s long-standing brand philosophy. This collaboration leverages their strong influence among young people to deeply communicate brand values with Generation Z.

After partnering with the Times Youth League, a channel to connect with Generation Z has been established. How should content be delivered to gain mutual recognition from star fans and consumers, encouraging active sharing and achieving both popularity and sales?

Weilong keenly captures Generation Z’s biggest trait—happiness. The need for joy and self-satisfaction is the primary driver of consumption behavior. Living in the moment, never delaying gratification—“I want it, I get it”—has become a popular catchphrase.

Product Youthfulness: Insight into Consumers’ Health Needs

Returning to the spicy snack industry, health and safety have long been core pain points. Young consumers’ key demands for snacks are shifting from “bold flavors” to “delicious without gaining weight.” Reducing salt, sugar, and fat is no longer just slogans but hard criteria in purchasing decisions.

Weilong focuses on low-calorie, high-fiber, low-GI healthy ingredients like konjac and kelp, continuously launching healthier snack products. In 2025, vegetable-based products represented by konjac snacks, mainly konjac strips, accounted for 62.4% of revenue, amounting to 4.5 billion yuan—making it Weilong’s largest category.

Having keenly perceived health needs, Weilong broke out of the internal competition trap where other brands kept squeezing profits and lowering prices on old categories. Weilong pioneered a new track in konjac snacks. From blockbuster single products to category extensions, expanding the category’s marginal effects has driven significant growth.

As the pioneer of the konjac category, Weilong holds an absolute leading advantage with a market share exceeding 60%. Industry leadership relies on solid product development, including regional flavor innovations like Dai-style chicken foot-flavored konjac strips and high-fiber porcini mushroom konjac, along with the consistently best-selling sesame sauce konjac strips. Weilong has truly developed konjac strips from a single golden product into a mature series of categories.

From the early explosive success of spicy strips to now diversified offerings like flavored noodles, bean products, and vegetable products, Weilong has built a rich multi-category matrix. On one hand, it continues to innovate classic categories, exploring flavor gradients in seasoned noodle products, launching new flavors like spicy crayfish and turkey flavor spicy strips. On the other hand, in vegetable products, besides the booming konjac category, new categories like flavored seaweed—featuring refreshing, spicy, low-fat, and low-calorie advantages—are jointly supporting Weilong’s vegetable product lineup.

Behind product innovation, Weilong’s R&D investment is shifting from quantity to quality. The company has accumulated over 200 authorized patents, led the formulation of industry standards such as “Konjac Instant Food,” and participated in multiple industry standard developments. This truly drives high-quality industry development through R&D strength.

Engine for Youthfulness: Corporate Transformation Releases Vitality

Globally, the longevity of fast-moving consumer goods companies depends not only on continuous innovation in brands and products but also on internal transformation.

Currently, China’s snack industry is entering a period of adjustment, with fierce competition, market saturation, and slowing overall growth. According to iiMedia Research’s “2025 China Snack Food Industry Development and Consumer Behavior Survey,” the market size will reach approximately 1.18 trillion yuan in 2025, with a slowdown to 2% year-on-year growth. Most brands face dual challenges of revenue and profit decline, often caught in price competition, with revenue increasing but gross profit shrinking. Some leading companies are even experiencing losses. Against this backdrop, Weilong demonstrates strong anti-fragility.

In 2025, Weilong’s revenue will reach 7.2 billion yuan, with a gross profit margin maintained at a high level of 48%, significantly better than the industry average, making it a rare example of stable double growth amid the downturn.

During this period, supply chain quality and efficiency improvements, along with channel restructuring, have become the engines of Weilong’s youthfulness strategy.

Building on the foundation of five factories in Henan in 2025, Weilong is expanding to build a new factory in Nanning, Guangxi. Optimizing capacity layout provides crucial support for business expansion, improving market responsiveness while greatly reducing logistics costs.

In the same year, Weilong’s seventh-generation intelligent production equipment was unveiled for the first time. The konjac strip production line achieved an integrated process of “swelling—shaping—seasoning—packaging,” reducing land use by half and increasing production efficiency by 80%, doubling capacity.

Weilong continues to upgrade its food safety and quality assurance systems, increasing investment in production equipment and process innovation. All production lines are automated, with most automation equipment developed internally. The company has been awarded honors such as the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s “National 5G Application Safety Zone Benchmark” and Henan Province’s third batch of 5G application benchmarks.

Meanwhile, Weilong actively follows channel changes, promoting deep integration of online and offline channels. The online platform builds a comprehensive ecosystem, while offline efforts expand terminal outlets, strengthen product distribution, and enhance omnichannel development.

Channel reach efficiency determines growth potential. When snack wholesale channels first emerged, most brands adopted a wait-and-see attitude toward new channels. Weilong, with its early strategic deployment and close cooperation with leading brands, fully grasped channel dividends. By embracing new snack wholesale channels, Weilong rapidly expanded its offline distribution.

From its humble beginnings over twenty years ago in Luohe, Henan, to leading the industry with 7.2 billion yuan in revenue today, Weilong’s success is no accident. In a fiercely competitive arena, what is truly scarce is not technology itself but understanding user needs. Weilong has always chosen to start from the crowd, responding to more specific needs through its products.

From a single classic spicy strip to partnering with the Times Youth League, Weilong has proven that the ultimate competitive advantage in the snack industry is never low prices but precise mastery of the “refreshing” emotions. When young people are willing to pay for instant joy and momentary relaxation, brands hold the core secret to crossing industry cycles and achieving long-term growth.