利润暴涨151%！香港老牌快餐逆风翻盘 还要在内地加速开店

This article walks through the full turnaround story of Café de Coral, the nearly 60-year-old iconic Hong Kong fast-food chain, which reversed its performance amid the broader industry downturn. Key takeaways and actionable practices are as follows:

1. Performance: The chain’s full-year net profit for FY2025 fell 29.5% year-over-year, but results shifted dramatically between halves. Net profit dropped nearly 70% in the first half, before surging 151.1% from the first half and rising 32.2% year-over-year in the second half. Following the earnings release, its share price jumped nearly 16%, earning approval from capital markets.

2. Actionable strategies: Café de Coral optimized its store footprint by closing large outlets and opening smaller locations to cut rent and labor costs, and rolled out a three-year cost-reduction program. It shifted core ingredient sourcing and part of its production to mainland China to lower expenses. The chain chose not to raise prices, refusing to pass cost pressures onto consumers, and launched a high-value HK$16.9 set meal targeting office workers. Leveraging its membership program of over 6.6 million users, it offered member-exclusive discounts to drive repeat purchases and boost off-peak revenue, successfully halting its sales decline.

Café de Coral’s transformation as an established Hong Kong fast-food brand offers actionable reference for operational adjustments for food and beverage (F&B) brands today. Key insights are as follows:

1. Capturing consumer trends: Consumers are now extremely price-sensitive when dining out. High-value weekday meals for office workers align with broad market demand and represent a new growth opportunity. Brands can adjust their positioning accordingly, shifting from upscale concepts to a mass-market "office worker canteen" to capture market share.

2. Channel and cost optimization: The profitability decline of traditional large-format stores is amplified when revenue drops. Brands can transition to a smaller store model of around 140 square meters, closing underperforming large outlets and opening new small-format stores and delivery-exclusive locations to control rent and labor costs. They can also shift supply chain operations to lower-cost mainland China to cut procurement and production expenses.

3. Pricing and user operations: Brands can absorb cost increases rather than passing them to consumers, trading short-term profits for long-term customer retention. Building a membership program to capture first-party data, and using frequent exclusive discounts to drive repeat visits, helps boost revenue during off-peak hours.

Café de Coral’s adjustment amid the F&B industry downturn provides reference for F&B sellers to manage risks and capture growth opportunities. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Shifting demand and untapped opportunities: Consumers now broadly prioritize affordability, and there is strong unmet demand for weekday meals priced between 15 and 25 yuan for office workers, a price segment that still offers considerable room for growth. F&B sellers can develop targeted products to enter this market.

2. Risk mitigation measures: High rent is currently the biggest cost pressure for the industry. Sellers can follow Café de Coral’s example: close large stores and open smaller outlets, downsize when lease renewal cannot secure lower rates, shut down underperforming locations to cut costs, and add delivery-exclusive outlets to expand revenue channels.

3. Operational best practices: Build an in-house membership program to capture first-party users, and activate users with frequent promotional menus to boost off-peak foot traffic. Adopt AI tools to streamline workflows, cut back-office operational costs, and improve efficiency. The mainland Chinese market offers lower costs and larger demand, so sellers can gradually shift more resources to expand store footprint there.

Café de Coral’s transformation creates new demand and growth opportunities for upstream F&B supply chain factories. Key insights are as follows:

1. New business collaboration opportunities: Café de Coral has already shifted its core ingredient sourcing and central kitchen processing operations from Hong Kong to mainland China. As more Hong Kong F&B brands expand into the mainland, mainland supply chain factories will secure more orders from leading brands, opening up substantially larger collaboration opportunities.

2. Product design and manufacturing requirements: Downstream F&B brands now focus on affordable, standardized set meals, which puts higher demands on cost control and standardization from upstream suppliers. Factories need to provide stable, low-cost, standardized pre-processed products to align with downstream brands’ cost control goals.

3. Implications for digital transformation: Café de Coral has already adopted AI tools to improve operational efficiency and advance company-wide digital upgrades. Upstream factories need to align with the digital requirements of downstream brands, accelerate their own digital transformation, improve delivery efficiency, and cut production and operational costs to better meet brand requirements.

Café de Coral’s transformation reveals the common pain points and development trends of today’s F&B industry, and points out clear business directions for F&B service providers. Key insights are as follows:

1. Current industry pain points: The entire F&B industry is in a downturn, and most brands face soaring rent and labor costs, declining revenue, weak foot traffic, and low customer retention. Their core demand is to cut costs, improve efficiency, and identify new growth drivers.

2. Business expansion directions: First, develop space design and operation management services tailored for small-format stores and delivery-exclusive outlets, to meet brands’ demand for shifting away from large stores. Second, develop AI-powered cost-reduction and efficiency tools to help brands streamline operations and cut back-office costs. Third, upgrade private membership operation services to help brands capture first-party users and boost repeat visits and off-peak foot traffic through targeted marketing. Fourth, offer supply chain integration services to help brands connect with mainland supply chain resources and lower procurement and production costs.

Café de Coral’s transformation reflects the current demand of F&B merchants, and offers implications for operation, merchant recruitment and risk management for F&B platforms. Key insights are as follows:

1. Merchant demand overview: A large number of established traditional F&B brands are now undergoing cost-cutting transformations, expanding delivery services and rolling out small-format stores. They need platforms to provide tailored traffic support and operation tools for small stores and delivery-exclusive outlets, to help them lower operational costs and boost delivery revenue.

2. Adjustment to merchant recruitment strategy: Established Hong Kong F&B brands like Café de Coral are accelerating their expansion into mainland China. These brands have mature product lines and existing user bases, and their value-focused positioning matches current market demand. Platforms can launch targeted recruitment incentives to attract these brands, expand the selection of affordable fast food on the platform, and draw more users.

3. Operation optimization and risk mitigation: The entire F&B industry is under pressure, so platforms need to adjust operating rules to align with merchants’ cost-reduction goals, lower merchants’ operating costs, and prevent brand churn. At the same time, platforms can step up development of private membership operation tools to help merchants improve user retention and navigate the industry downturn together.

This article presents a typical case of an established Hong Kong F&B brand transforming during an industry downturn, reveals multiple new industry trends, and offers high value for industrial research. Key insights are as follows:

1. New industry trends: Constrained by high rent and labor costs, the Hong Kong F&B market offers limited growth headroom, so a growing number of established Hong Kong F&B brands are accelerating the shift of resources to mainland China, gradually moving supply chain and store expansion inland. Meanwhile, the broader F&B industry has entered an era of competition based on affordability, as consumers become more price-sensitive, and the "office worker canteen" positioning has emerged as a new mainstream direction.

2. A new transformation business model: This article summarizes a combined "winter survival" playbook for established legacy F&B brands during industry downturns: adjusting store structure to cut costs, ceding margin on pricing to acquire customers, using private membership operations to retain users, and leveraging digital tools to boost efficiency. This playbook has been proven to quickly halt performance decline, and provides a new reference model for traditional F&B enterprises’ transformation.

3. New research questions: This article raises multiple new topics worth exploring, including how established legacy enterprises can stop decline and rebound through business adjustments during industry downturns, how capital markets evaluate the value of corporate transformations, and the industrial impacts of Hong Kong F&B brands’ shift inland.