旺季来了 糖水凉了

This article maps out the 2026 summer cooling of the sweet soup industry’s peak season, analyzes the core reasons behind the sector’s slowdown, and outlines practical entry strategies for everyday people looking to start a sweet soup business.

1. The industry’s downturn is not merely driven by macro factors such as consumption downgrading and abnormal weather. Fundamentally, it stems from systemic issues: mismatched category positioning, excessive homogenization and cutthroat competition across the supply chain, and a dysfunctional franchise ecosystem. Most sweet soup brands that blindly copied the 10,000-store model of new-style tea drinks are now trapped in trouble.

2. For individuals entering the space, three practical paths are recommended: First, abandon large stores in core shopping malls, and instead open 20-30 square meter small outlets in community street locations to cut rent and labor costs and lower the break-even threshold. Second, forgo independent retail stores and shift to supplying sweet soup products to hot pot restaurants, barbecue shops and other B-end clients for steady revenue. Third, reformulate products to return to a light, low-sugar profile and abandon the "pile-on toppings" strategy, to align with current consumer demands.

This article analyzes the core issues behind the current widespread slowdown in the new-style sweet soup track, and provides multi-dimensional insights for brand operators in the sector.

1. On consumption trends: Today’s consumers face overnutrition and demand light, low-sugar, no-guilt desserts. Heavy, high-carb sweet soups loaded with toppings no longer meet market needs. Product R&D must move beyond the formula of a plain base with assorted pre-made toppings, and return to sweet soup’s original core function of cooling and quenching thirst.

2. On channel development: Sweet soup is a category focused on on-premise consumption. Brands should not blindly follow the new-style tea drink playbook of fighting for locations in core shopping malls and building large, heavily decorated outlets. This model inflates fixed costs, and most brands fail to break even due to low table turnover and volatile foot traffic. Brands can cut costs by shifting to small street-side outlets in communities, or pivot to become a B-end supplier.

3. On franchise operations: Brands must first refine a proven profitable unit economics model before expanding. They cannot rely on overpromising to exploit franchisees; relying on heavy fines to maintain cash flow will only trigger a full-blown信任危机.

This article exposes the many pitfalls of the new-style sweet soup franchise track, and outlines risks and potential opportunities for sellers looking to enter the sweet soup business.

1. Risk warning: Most viral open-franchise sweet soup brands promise franchisees attractive outcomes like 70% gross margins and payback within six months, but these only exist in ideal scenarios. After deducting brand markup on raw materials, platform commission and promotion costs, the actual gross margin is only 45% to 50%. Most large stores in core shopping malls record daily revenue under 3,000 yuan, making it hard to break even. Some brands even rely on heavy fines to exploit franchisees, so sellers must stay alert to these bad actors.

2. Opportunity outlook: Aspiring sellers can adopt a lean store model, cutting fixed costs significantly by opening small outlets in community street locations. They can also partner with local hot pot and barbecue restaurants to supply sweet soup as a menu add-on, avoiding the standalone cost of store operation. Focusing product offerings on light, low-sugar options that align with current consumer preferences will also make it easier to secure steady foot traffic.

This article analyzes the current development status and transformation direction of the sweet soup industry, and outlines new business opportunities and growth paths for sweet soup supply chain factories.

1. On product demand: A growing number of offline food and beverage outlets now offer sweet soup as a greasy-cutting side dish, and independent sweet soup stores generally use standardized pre-made ingredients. Factories can further optimize production of standardized pre-made materials, develop modular finished sweet soup products tailored for B-end catering clients, and expand their B-end customer base.

2. On product development: Consumers today prefer light, low-sugar, no-guilt sweet soup. Factories can develop targeted low-sugar, low-calorie ingredients to replace traditional high-carb, high-sugar raw materials, adapting to the new product trend.

3. On growth opportunities: The formulation barrier of traditional sweet soup has already been broken down by industrialized production. Factories can leverage their advantages in standardized production, directly connect to B-end clients to open up new growth space, and reduce reliance on C-end viral brands.

This article sorts out the existing problems and transformation trends of the sweet soup industry, exposes core pain points of all industry participants, and clarifies business directions for catering-related service providers.

1. Industry development trend: The sweet soup track is currently in a consolidation phase. The old capital-matured 10,000-store franchise model has reached the end of its life. The industry will transform in the future toward small lean outlets, B-end supply chains, and light-profile products. This transformation is generating a large number of new service demands.

2. Core client pain points: Aspiring franchisees struggle to identify reliable brands and easily fall into exploitative schemes; brands in transformation lack experience in lean operation and B-end customer acquisition; homogenized supply chain factories also lack channels to reach new clients.

3. Solution directions: Service providers can offer sweet soup brand evaluation and store opening consulting to help franchisees avoid pitfalls. They can also provide lean operation consulting and B-end client matching services to help brands complete transformation. They can also build supply-demand matching platforms to connect factories with B-end catering clients, and ease the customer acquisition difficulties caused by homogenization.

This article exposes the current chaos in the sweet soup franchise track, flags risks for platforms engaged in sweet soup category recruitment and operation, and clarifies directions for operation optimization.

1. Core industry demand from platforms: The industry currently needs platforms to provide authentic, transparent brand information, and protect the rights and interests of both brands and franchisees. Many platforms have previously allowed viral sweet soup brands to publish false advertising that overstates gross margins and payback periods, and subsequent franchisee rights disputes end up damaging the platform’s own reputation.

2. Directions for operation management optimization: Platforms need to strengthen qualification checks for settled sweet soup brands, verify the real unit economic data of brands’ stores, ban brands from publishing false profit expectation claims, and standardize brands’ franchise management practices.

3. Directions for risk mitigation and business upgrading: Platforms should issue early warnings and remove problematic brands that expand extremely quickly and rely on fines to manage franchisees, to avoid getting involved in rights disputes. At the same time, platforms can onboard lean-model sweet soup brands and B-end supply chain projects that align with new industry trends, optimize their supply structure, and seize opportunities from industry transformation.

This article takes the 2026 peak-season slowdown of the sweet soup industry as a research sample, analyzes the various problems arising from the capital-driven expansion of traditional categories, and offers multiple insights for catering industry research.

1. New industry dynamics: After capital entered the traditional sweet soup category in recent years, brands expanded rapidly by copying the 10,000-store franchise model from new-style tea drinks. In 2026, the entire sector slowed down, with a large number of brand closures and franchisee rights claims. The industry is now in a consolidation phase that is phasing out the old model, while new business models are still being explored.

2. New core industry problems: The slowdown exposes three core problems in today’s new catering track. First, different catering categories have their own inherent characteristics; blindly applying scaling models from other categories leads to severe misalignment with market realities. Second, after the industrialization of the supply chain reached its current level of maturity, the catering industry easily falls into homogenized cutthroat competition, and brands struggle to build product barriers. Third, franchise models are prone to distortion: under capital pressure, brand owners easily become tools for exploiting franchisees, triggering industry-wide trust crises.

3. Implications for business model research: The scaling of catering categories must respect the inherent characteristics of the category, cannot pursue growth blindly while deviating from the fundamental nature of the business. When capital invests in traditional catering categories, it must adhere to long-term thinking, and refine a proven profitable model before expanding.