Qiyun Mountain's IPO in Hong Kong: Can it boost the popularity of Southern Ziziphus Jujube Cake nationwide?

Ask AI · How do Qiyunshan’s management leverage restructuring to achieve a corporate turnaround?

Have you ever tried Southern sour jujube cake?

《Investor Network》Zhang Wei

According to data from the National Intellectual Property Administration, by the end of 2025, China has recognized a total of 5,066 geographical indication protected products. At the same time, more than 52,000 business entities have been approved to operate using the “GI” (geographical indication) exclusive certification mark. In simple terms, roughly every 10 companies carry out business activities around 1 “GI” product.

And to stand out among such a large number of products and companies, quickly build brand awareness, and list on the capital market (IPO) is a direct and effective way to do it.

In March this year, Jiangxi Qiyunshan Food Co., Ltd., a producer of Southern sour jujube foods from Chongyi County, Ganzhou, Jiangxi (hereinafter “Qiyunshan” or “the company”), submitted its prospectus. The company plans to list in Hong Kong. It is reported that Qiyunshan first filed its application with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in June 2024. This time, it has returned for an IPO in Hong Kong again after updating its financial data.

A billion-yuan-scale industry of Southern sour jujube cake

Southern sour jujube originates in Jiangxi. It is distributed in many provinces and regions in southern China. Its fruit looks like a jujube but tastes sour, hence the name sour jujube. To distinguish it from sour jujube belonging to the buckthorn family, it is called Southern sour jujube and Guang sour jujube. According to materials, the area of wild Southern sour jujube in Chongyi County, Ganzhou, Jiangxi exceeds 250,000 mu. Qiyunshan is exactly growing and expanding by relying on the wild Southern sour jujube resources in Chongyi County.

It is understood that Qiyunshan’s predecessor was the Chongyi County Food Factory established in 1958. This is one of the earliest food enterprises in Ganzhou, Jiangxi, mainly producing traditional snacks such as cakes, biscuits, and candied fruits. The history of Chongyi Southern sour jujube cake is even older than that of the Chongyi County Food Factory. As early as during the Kangxi period in the Qing Dynasty, local residents in Ganzhou had a tradition of making cakes with Southern sour jujube, which means the history dates back more than 300 years.

In 1990, the Chongyi County Food Factory registered the Qiyunshan trademark. Subsequently, under the leadership of the young factory director Liu Zhigao, the Chongyi County Food Factory decided to simplify operations. It no longer focused on “everything under one roof” products. Instead, it chose to rely on the resource advantages of wild Southern sour jujube in Ganzhou and specialize in producing Southern sour jujube cake.

In 1997, it became a turning point for Qiyunshan’s development. In this year, Liu Zhigao led 50 employees to jointly contribute funds to acquire the Chongyi County Food Factory from the relevant local authorities. Then, it injected all of the factory’s business, assets, and liabilities into Qiyunshan (the company). Since then, the Qiyunshan trademark has become deeply bound up with Southern sour jujube cake.

Over the next more than 20 years, Qiyunshan has gone deep into the Southern sour jujube cake segment. By leveraging two core qualifications—green food and the national “GI” protected products—it has built industry barriers. In 2018, Qiyunshan’s Southern sour jujube cake was recognized as a national “GI” protected product, becoming the only Southern sour jujube cake product in China to receive this certification.

Financial reports show that in 2024 and 2025, Qiyunshan’s revenue exceeded 300 million yuan for two consecutive years. Through more than twenty years of effort, the company has turned a small Southern sour jujube cake into a billion-yuan-level business.

Before the IPO, dividends exceeded 40 million yuan

As mentioned earlier, in 1997, Qiyunshan completed a management buyout and carried out restructuring. And the key driver behind this transformation was Liu Zhigao and Liu Jiyan, two brothers. The prospectus shows that Liu Zhigao and Liu Jiyan are the chairman and vice chairman of Qiyunshan, respectively. At the same time, the company’s core team also includes four people from the Chongyi Food Factory: Zhu Fangyong, Yang Yulan, Ling Huashan, and Huang Zhongming.

From the perspective of the equity structure, the Chongyi Food Factory (holding 75%) and Yunzhishang Limited Partnership (holding 25%) jointly hold Qiyunshan. Although the Chongyi Food Factory withdrew from operations after 2000, together with Yunzhishang Limited Partnership, it remains the equity holding platform for Qiyunshan’s core management.

To increase control, Qiyunshan’s six core executives hold shares in both holding platforms.

In the Chongyi Food Factory, Liu Zhigao holds 24.25%, Liu Jiyan holds 14.69%, and Zhu Fangyong, Yang Yulan, Ling Huashan, and Huang Zhongming hold 22.03%, 3.13%, 2.65%, and 2.04%, respectively. In total, the six people control 68.79% of the equity. In Yunzhishang Limited Partnership, the shareholding proportions of the above six people are 16.46%, 11.89%, 12.8%, 7.93%, 8.51%, and 10.73%, respectively. In total, the six people control 68.32% of the equity.

Before this IPO, Qiyunshan conducted several rounds of dividend distributions. The prospectus shows that from 2022 to 2025, Qiyunshan’s cumulative dividends were approximately 43.59 million yuan, of which the dividend in 2025 was approximately 42% of the net profit for that year. If calculated based on shareholding proportions, the six core executives at Qiyunshan likely received total dividends of nearly 30 million yuan.

The stated use of funds shows that in this IPO financing, Qiyunshan plans to use the proceeds for increasing production capacity, product R&D, online marketing, and replenishing cash flow, among other purposes. However, distributing such large dividends before the IPO may also add uncertainty to whether the company can raise the intended IPO funding amount.

The segment is narrow and performance fluctuates

According to data from Zhishi Consulting, in 2024 the market size of China’s Southern sour jujube food sector was about 1.9 billion yuan. Qiyunshan ranked first with a 32.4% share of retail sales, far ahead of the second-place company and other small and medium-sized manufacturers. But when expanded to the entire snack category, Qiyunshan’s industry position is less impressive.

It is reported that in 2024, China’s snack industry market size reached 1.34 trillion yuan, including the fruit-based snack market of nearly 100 billion yuan. Qiyunshan accounts for only about 0.63% of the fruit-based snack market, ranking ninth, with a significant gap compared with leading fruit-based snack companies.

In terms of sales performance, Qiyunshan has not yet escaped the attributes of a regional brand. In 2025, about 33% of the company’s revenue came from Jiangxi. Hunan and Fujian accounted for 13% and 11.2%, respectively. Together, these three provinces contributed more than 57%. Its penetration in markets outside East China and South China is relatively low.

This “niche leader, constrained to a region, and small presence across the country” industry position, while confirming the success of Southern sour jujube cake as a single product, also highlights Qiyunshan’s development ceiling: growth opportunities for a single category and a single region are limited. Whether the company can expand on a large scale in the future remains uncertain.

Based on revenue composition, Qiyunshan’s income mainly comes from two categories: Southern sour jujube cake and Southern sour jujube kernels. From 2023 to 2025, the combined revenue share of the two products was 93.5%, 94.7%, and 96.74%, respectively. Among them, Southern sour jujube cake’s revenue share has stayed above 84% for three consecutive years, making it the company’s super flagship single product.

And in order to break the dilemma of relying on a single product, Qiyunshan has also been trying to diversify its products in recent years. The company has launched extended product categories such as Southern sour jujube凝 (jelly), soft candies, and frozen products. It has also attempted to expand into other fruit-and-vegetable cakes such as mango cake and kiwifruit cake. However, judging from the revenue composition, the market response to these related products has not met expectations.

Compared with peers, Qiyunshan’s problem of product single-mindedness is relatively prominent. For example, Liuli Guoyuan has more than ten series, including Liuli plum, snow plum, and green plum. Three Squirrels, for instance, covers virtually the full range of snack categories. In today’s environment of diversified consumer demand and accelerating snack iteration, Qiyunshan’s “one good trick” model is prone to being eliminated by the market.

From the financial reports, Qiyunshan is also facing the risk of performance fluctuations. From 2023 to 2025, the company’s revenue was 2.47 billion yuan, 3.39 billion yuan, and 3.14 billion yuan, respectively. Net profit was 23.70 million yuan, 53.199 million yuan, and 48.922 million yuan, respectively. The company’s performance in 2025 saw ups and downs.

Regarding the reasons for the performance fluctuations, Qiyunshan said that first, orders from major customers were reduced; second, the consumption environment was weak, with subdued terminal demand. In addition, because the Spring Festival in 2026 comes later, peak-season sales were delayed to January 2026, which affected the company’s 2025 performance.

There are also views that Southern sour jujube food has a low entry threshold and that there is no strong core technological barrier. In recent years, as many small and medium-sized manufacturers have entered the market, they have used low prices to capture market share. Unregulated low-price competition in the industry has led to a decline in the unit price of Southern sour jujube cake. If competition intensifies, the gross margin of related products may face further pressure.

In the future, as the company goes public, whether Qiyunshan can further enhance brand awareness, attract more partners and consumers, and thus attract investors, is something investors may want to keep an eye on. What do you think about Qiyunshan’s listing in Hong Kong? Feel free to discuss it in the comments. (Produced by Siwei Finance)