头部商场疯抢餐饮“爆店” 背后是巨大的流量焦虑？

This article outlines the current industry trend of top-tier shopping malls aggressively competing for popular niche food and beverage concepts, with key takeaways as follows:

1. Core industry phenomenon: All regional F&B brands with unique positioning and a certain level of brand recognition are now being courted by leading malls across China. Regional category leaders are entering a golden era of cross-regional expansion, with brands like Chayan Yuese and Yancongtoutou successfully securing spots in top-tier malls in Shenzhen, Guangzhou and other first-tier cities where prime retail space was previously almost impossible to obtain.

2. Underlying driver: Commercial real estate has entered an era of saturated competition, with the total number of shopping malls projected to grow to 9,500 by 2030, giving consumers far more options. To capture younger foot traffic, leading malls now actively seek out niche F&B brands that already have built-in social media buzz, as the opening of such brands inherently generates significant exposure for the mall.

3. Key takeaway for independent F&B founders: The core value of a F&B brand has shifted from total number of locations to brand uniqueness. Building distinct differentiation and consistently delivering fresh experiences significantly increases access to industry resources and long-term growth opportunities.

This article outlines new trends in F&B channel access and industry competition, with key takeaways for F&B brand owners as follows:

1. A new channel opportunity has emerged: Top shopping malls are broadly facing traffic acquisition anxiety and are desperate for niche regional F&B brands to draw crowds. Previously out-of-reach prime mall locations are now opening up to strong regional brands, creating the best window in history for regional brands to expand nationally.

2. Site selection advice for expansion: When entering new markets cross-regionally, prioritize partnering with leading commercial real estate developers including China Resources, Swire Properties and Longfor Properties. Leveraging the inherent foot traffic of top malls reduces expansion risk, and brands should avoid non-leading malls with stagnant footfall.

3. New logic for brand competition: Industry valuation of F&B brands has shifted from a size-focused metric to evaluating a brand’s ability to drive traffic, generate social engagement, and stand out from competitors. Brands should prioritize building capacity to deliver unique, scarce content and consistently create fresh experiences for consumers.

4. New direction for group operations: Brands can pursue multi-brand incubation and acquisition strategies. Packing multiple brands together to secure prime mall locations helps consolidate market position.

This article summarizes new shifts in F&B expansion, with key takeaways for F&B business owners as follows:

1. New growth opportunity: Top malls are lowering entry barriers for niche regional F&B brands in their fight for foot traffic. Prime malls that once exclusively leased space to national first-tier brands now offer prime spots to strong regional concepts, creating an excellent opportunity for regional F&B operators to expand cross-regionally and build a national business.

2. Practical expansion advice: When opening in an unfamiliar new market, prioritize developments from leading owners such as China Resources and Longfor. Top malls already draw large volumes of organic foot traffic, helping brands quickly gain traction locally. Avoid small and mid-sized malls with low footfall to prevent wasting capital on underperforming locations.

3. Risk warning: The lifecycle of viral social media F&B concepts is getting shorter. After the initial first-store hype fades, it becomes difficult to maintain the long queues and profitability that justified the original location, and malls will no longer offer discounted lease terms. Brands need to prepare for this in advance.

4. Actionable best practice: Leading F&B groups’ strategy of packing multiple brands into a single development is worth replicating. Delivering multiple brands with different positioning to malls makes it much easier to secure prime core retail locations.

This article outlines new industry trends in F&B, with key takeaways for F&B supply chain and food manufacturing factories as follows:

1. Shifting product design and production demand: The market is increasingly favoring distinct, niche F&B brands, and consumer demand for unique, fresh concepts has risen sharply. This translates to significantly growing demand from F&B brands for differentiated raw materials and customized products. Factories can proactively build out R&D for niche products and customized production to capture this new demand.

2. New business opportunity: A national expansion wave for regional F&B brands is underway, and the turnover of viral F&B concepts is accelerating, with more new brands being incubated than ever before. This will generate more demand for flexible production with multiple SKUs and small batch sizes. Factories can adjust their production strategies to fit this new demand and win more orders.

3. Key insight for transformation: F&B has entered a new era of differentiation competition. Factories also need to build their own differentiated supply capacity to meet F&B brands’ demand for scarce, unique products, capture structural growth opportunities from industry fragmentation, and avoid cutthroat homogeneous competition.

This article summarizes the latest shifts in commercial real estate and F&B, with key takeaways for service providers serving the two industries as follows:

1. New industry trend: Commercial real estate has entered a phase of stock competition, and both the shopping mall and F&B sectors are rapidly polarizing. Top brands and top malls are increasingly forging exclusive partnerships, leading to a growing Matthew Effect that continuously squeezes the living space of small and mid-sized malls and small and mid-sized F&B brands.

2. Core client pain points: On one hand, the top pain point for leading malls is the lack of a steady pipeline of unique first-store concepts that can consistently drive foot traffic, as they need differentiated F&B brands to maintain their traffic appeal. On the other hand, small and mid-sized malls struggle to attract high-quality F&B brands, leading to continuous foot traffic decline. For F&B brands, the core pain point is difficulty securing prime locations when expanding cross-regionally.

3. Actionable solution opportunities: Service providers can build matching platforms that connect niche F&B brands with shopping malls. This model connects leading malls with high-quality regional brands on one side, and connects F&B brands with top mall resources on the other. Providers can also offer consulting services for small and mid-sized malls on format adjustment and brand attraction to help solve their foot traffic challenges.

This article outlines new shifts in the shopping mall industry, with key takeaways for commercial platform operators as follows:

1. Core demand from brand tenants: F&B brands increasingly prioritize only partnering with top-tier platforms when expanding, as top platforms deliver consistent organic foot traffic. The first-store虹吸 effect (siphon effect) for leading platforms is growing stronger: in the 2025 ranking of top 10 malls favored by first stores, half of the spots belong to the Mixc (China Resources) platform.

2. New direction for operations and leasing: In the stock competition era, top platforms need to continuously introduce unique regional first-store concepts to build differentiation. Leveraging the inherent social media buzz of these brands increases platform exposure, attracts younger consumers, and consolidates foot traffic advantages.

3. Adjustments to leasing strategy: Whereas leasing strategy once prioritized brand size and total number of locations, operators now need to prioritize evaluating a brand’s traffic-driving ability, social media appeal and differentiation. Prioritizing leasing to unique brands no other local mall has improves platform competitiveness.

4. Risk warning: Industry polarization will intensify, and foot traffic will continue to concentrate at top platforms. Small and mid-sized platforms that fail to adjust their tenant mix and attract niche F&B brands to solve their traffic challenges will fall into a vicious cycle of declining footfall, and need to adjust their positioning proactively.

This article summarizes the latest industry developments in the integrated development of F&B and commercial real estate, with key takeaways for industry researchers as follows:

1. Latest industry trend: A new trend has emerged where top-tier shopping malls aggressively compete for popular niche regional F&B concepts, kicking off a wave of national expansion for regional F&B brands. Both the F&B and shopping mall industries are entering a phase of accelerated polarization, forming a new landscape of two-way binding between leading F&B brands and leading commercial real estate developers. Data from Winshang.com shows that the siphon effect of first stores concentrated in top malls is already very pronounced.

2. Shift in underlying industry logic: The valuation framework for F&B brands has been reconstructed. The old evaluation logic centered on expansion scale and number of stores has been replaced, with greater weight now placed on a brand’s ability to bring new foot traffic, generate social media engagement, and build differentiated brand recognition. Industry competition has shifted from a race for expansion efficiency to a competition for capacity to deliver scarce, unique content.

3. New business models and new research questions: Leading F&B groups have already developed a new model of multi-brand incubation and bulk leasing to secure prime locations. At the same time, new industry issues have emerged, including shortening lifecycles for viral F&B concepts and shrinking living space for small and mid-sized malls and small and mid-sized brands. All of these developments warrant further in-depth research.