上市九年首次亏损 平均每天关店8家 昔日“万店之王”遇挑战

This article profiles Juewei Duck Neck, once the largest chain player in China's prepared meat snack industry, which is currently facing its first loss since going public nine years ago and a sustained wave of store closures. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Core operating data: In 2025, Juewei posted revenue of 5.467 billion yuan, a 12.62% year-on-year drop, with a net loss attributable to shareholders of 191 million yuan. This marks the company's first annual loss since its 2017 IPO. From 2024 to 2025, the chain closed nearly 6,000 stores, an average of 8 stores per day. By the end of 2025, its operating store count was just two-thirds of its 2023 peak.

2. Common consumer pain points: Juewei has raised retail prices sharply, with the effective price exceeding 50 yuan per jin (0.5kg), close to the price of imported beef. Consumers also complain about opaque pricing tactics and cashiers habitually adding extra product beyond what customers ordered, earning the brand the label of "price gouger" among Chinese shoppers. Food safety incidents are also frequent, with more than 1,800 related complaints logged on consumer complaint platform Black Cat.

3. Industry-wide context: Growth across the entire prepared meat snack sector has slowed. Rivals Zhou Hei Ya and Huang Shanghuang are also closing stores, and most consumers have reduced their purchase frequency, with many shifting to alternative channels such as bulk snack stores and community group buying. Juewei is currently pursuing an omni-scenario transformation, but efforts have yet to yield results.

This article outlines the crisis unfolding at leading prepared meat snack brand Juewei, as well as the current state of the broader industry, offering key insights for prepared meat snack brands. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Shifting consumer trends: The prepared meat snack industry has slowed from high-speed growth to low single-digit growth, with market size expanding just 3.7% in 2024, down sharply from 18.6% in 2018. Consumers have become more rational and far more price-sensitive; more than 80% of survey respondents have reduced their purchases of chain-store prepared meat snacks, with price hikes cited as the top reason. Demand has fragmented across alternative channels including bulk snack stores and community group buying.

2. Key pitfalls for brand operation: For brands with a strong presence in lower-tier markets, consumers are even more price-sensitive. Failing to lower retail prices after raw material costs drop will lead to severe customer churn, while food safety issues and deceptive pricing tactics will further erode brand reputation. Multi-tiered franchise structures lengthen the profit chain, squeeze margins for terminal franchisees and undermine channel foundations.

3. Actionable takeaways from peer transformations: Proactively eliminate underperforming stores to increase the share of high-potential locations in core business districts and optimize per-square-meter sales. Adjust profit margins in line with raw material price fluctuations, expand into new channels such as supermarkets and bulk snack stores, and unlock new growth via acquisitions into adjacent categories.

This article summarizes the current state of the prepared meat snack industry and the success and failure lessons of leading brands, providing clear risk warnings and opportunity references for sellers in the sector. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Current industry risk warnings: The prepared meat snack industry has entered a stage of stock competition. Impulse purchases are declining, and consumers are extremely price-sensitive, meaning high prices easily drive customers away. Growth of traditional offline store channels has peaked, and foot traffic is being poached by bulk snack stores, community group buying, e-commerce live streaming and other channels, intensifying competition.

2. Operational warnings to heed: Opaque pricing, forced over-ordering and other tactics erode consumer trust very quickly, and continuously rising prices drive massive churn among existing customers. Multi-tiered franchise models lead to markups at every level, severely squeezing terminal franchisee margins. Frequent food safety issues directly destroy brand reputation and cause foot traffic to plummet.

3. Lessons and opportunity directions to leverage: Proactively optimize store networks by closing low-performing, inefficient stores and focusing on core business districts to improve per-store profitability. Adjust pricing and profit reasonably in line with raw material price fluctuations, expand full-category offerings to cover late-night snacks, household grocery shopping, white-collar lunches and other scenarios, and enter supermarkets and bulk snack channels to capture new traffic growth.

This article analyzes shifting consumer demand in the prepared meat snack industry and the transformation directions of leading brands, offering key references for prepared meat processing factories. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Changing demand for product development and design: Consumer demand for prepared meat snacks has shifted from single duck byproduct snacks to full-category products covering multiple consumption scenarios. Factories need to develop products adapted to late-night dining, daily community grocery shopping, white-collar lunches, family gatherings and other scenarios, including hot prepared meat, staple foods, beverages, red meat prepared products, family-sized combo packs and other categories, as differentiated demand grows increasingly prominent.

2. New business opportunities to capture: Leading prepared meat brands are all pushing forward full-category, omni-scenario transformations, driving a sharp increase in demand for multi-category production. At the same time, leading brands are expanding into third-party channels such as supermarkets and bulk snack stores, generating more demand for stable bulk orders, bringing new business growth for upstream factories.

3. Insights for digital and e-commerce transformation: After the industry entered stock competition, cost control and flexible production capabilities have grown in importance. Factories need to adapt to brands' demand for multi-category, small-batch production, optimize production management, and reduce production and management costs via digital tools, to better meet the needs of brands undergoing transformation.

This article summarizes current development trends and core pain points in the prepared meat snack industry, clarifying market demand and service directions for service providers targeting the sector. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Overall industry development trends: The prepared meat snack industry has completed its incremental expansion phase and entered a stage of stock optimization. The industry's growth driver has shifted from channel expansion to product and per-store efficiency, with overall growth slowing. Most leading brands are pursuing strategic transformations, leading to a sharp increase in market demand for professional services.

2. Core pain points of industry clients: The traditional multi-tiered franchise system has unreasonable profit distribution, keeping terminal prices high, compressing per-store profits and making system-wide transformation difficult. After brands expand into multi-category new store formats, standardized management becomes more difficult, leading to sharp increases in labor and management costs. Multi-category expansion also requires far more flexible supply chains than existing capabilities can support.

3. Accessible solution directions: Service providers can offer consulting services for flattening franchise management structures and restructuring profit distribution. They can provide low-cost digital management systems for store operations to help brands cut management costs for multi-store, multi-category operations. For supply chain needs, they can offer flexible supply chain services adapted to multi-category, small-batch delivery requirements to help brands control costs.

This article outlines the transformation needs and current development status of leading prepared meat snack brands, offering key references for all types of retail platform operators. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Core demand from brands for platforms: Growth of leading prepared meat brands' traditional offline franchise channels has peaked, and they are all seeking new traffic growth amid stock competition. Top brands including Juewei and Zhou Hei Ya have already started expanding into supermarkets and bulk snack channels, and have clear demand for entering third-party platforms to open up new channels.

2. Actionable steps for platforms: Platforms can open up brand onboarding to meet brands' new channel demand, and build adapted warehousing and delivery systems tailored to the characteristics of fresh prepared meat products to preserve product freshness and meet the needs of both brands and consumers. They can also offer traffic support for brands' full-category expansion to help them scale quickly, while enriching the platform's own product assortment.

3. Risks to note: Overall profitability across the prepared meat snack industry is declining, and operating performance varies widely across brands. Platforms need to conduct thorough screening during merchant recruitment, prioritize brands with strong product capabilities and solid per-store profitability to avoid brands with excessive operating risk. They can also leverage industry consolidation to attract high-quality transforming brands to enrich platform supply.

This article presents the full transformation of China's prepared meat snack industry from incremental expansion to stock competition, providing a comparative case study of different strategies adopted by leading brands, with high value for industrial research. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. New trends in China's prepared meat snack industry: Industry growth has slowed sharply, from 18.6% in 2018 to 3.7% in 2024. Consumer demand has changed notably: consumers are more price-sensitive, impulse purchases are declining, and demand is fragmented across multiple channels. The industry's competitive logic has shifted from scale competition to per-store efficiency competition, and leading brands are all exploring new growth models based on omni-scenario, full-category offerings.

2. New problems emerging in industrial development: The multi-tiered franchise model that enabled 10,000-store scale creates a backlash effect in a stock market: markups across multiple layers squeeze terminal profits, structural adjustment is extremely difficult, and transformation proceeds far slower than for smaller brands. Full-category, omni-scenario transformation pushes up management costs and increases the difficulty of standardization, making it hard for enterprises to leverage their original advantage in scalable replication. The success rate of building a second growth curve via diversified investment is low, often leading to sustained losses.

3. A typical research sample for business model analysis: This article compares Juewei's four-tier franchise expansion model, Zhou Hei Ya's strategy of proactive store closure optimization plus multi-channel growth, and Huang Shanghuang's cost-cutting and expansion approach. The operational results of these different models in the stock market differ significantly, providing a highly typical research sample for studying the adaptability of chain franchise business models across different industry development stages.