一批黑鸭煲门店消失 风口品类越来越“短命”？

This article outlines the full trajectory of the black duck clay pot, a viral food category that went from breakout popularity to rapid decline, analyzes the core reasons why most trend-driven food categories have short lifespans, and provides relevant information and practical guidance for general readers.

1. Key facts: The black duck clay pot trend emerged in Wuhan at the end of 2024, and went nationwide in 2025. The number of related businesses surged to 10 times the year-earlier level, with many popular brands seeing three-hour wait times for tables, and some outlets even recouping their full investment in just nine days of operation. Just over a year later, by July 2026, multiple leading brands initiated large-scale store closures: top player Huiwei Black Duck Pot shut down all its locations in Shanghai and Beijing, and most brands exited the market less than a year after launching.

2. Practical takeaways for aspiring small restaurant operators: Do not jump blindly into trend-driven viral food categories. Most of these categories draw customers only through novelty, have extremely low product barriers that make them easy to replicate, and see demand collapse once the initial novelty fades. Prioritize evaluating the inherent competitiveness of your product before entering any new segment.

This article analyzes the current status and root causes of the "live fast, die young" pattern of trend-driven viral food categories in China's catering industry, and provides insights for food brand operators across brand building, product development and consumer trend strategy.

1. Current consumer trends: Consumers are highly willing to try new, novel food categories, but their novelty fades extremely quickly. Customer retention and repeat business ultimately depend on product quality; novelty-focused marketing alone cannot sustain a customer base.

2. Brand marketing warning: Relying on novelty-driven social media marketing and manufactured crowd waiting can only generate short-term buzz. It cannot build long-term customer trust or brand reputation, and a volume-focused business model built on rapid franchise expansion is rarely sustainable.

3. Product development guidance: Low-barrier standardized products can be replicated industry-wide very quickly. Brands need to build moats around product technology and quality, and uphold business integrity. False advertising and cutting corners with inferior ingredients will quickly erode brand equity.

This article summarizes the development patterns and risks of trend-driven viral food categories, and provides actionable insights for food sellers on opportunity assessment and risk management.

1. Development patterns of current viral food categories: The lifespans of trending categories are continuously shrinking, accelerating from annual to quarterly turnover. Almost all viral categories follow the same expansion playbook: open an initial outlet in a core shopping district to manufacture a waiting crowd effect, generate buzz through influencer探店 short video marketing, then open up franchising at the peak of popularity to scale up quickly. This is inherently a short-term traffic play, not a sustainable long-term food business.

2. Risk warning: Opening a dedicated store to blindly follow a trend carries extremely high risk. Low-barrier categories quickly become commoditized, and demand dries up once novelty fades. Dedicated equipment for these categories usually has little general use, and can only be sold for scrap value if the business fails, making it very difficult to recoup initial investment.

3. Opportunity guidance: Sellers can capitalize on trend hype by adding related items to their existing menus, rather than pivoting entirely to the new category. This lets them capture trend-driven traffic while drastically reducing trial and error costs, a strategy that has already been validated by multiple food brands across different segments.

This article analyzes the development characteristics and market demand of trend-driven viral food categories, and provides insights for catering-related production factories across product development, business opportunity strategy and risk management.

1. Product development demand: Current viral food categories overwhelmingly favor highly standardized, prefabricated products that enable fast service. The "one sauce creates the dish" model is widely popular among brands, driving strong demand for pre-processed, fresh-locked ingredients. Factories can develop targeted standardized products to capture incremental demand during trend cycles.

2. Business risk warning: Viral food categories have very fast iteration speeds and short lifecycles. Factories should control production capacity when developing related products to avoid idle capacity after the trend fades. They should also prioritize developing versatile products that work across multiple categories, rather than single-purpose products for only one trend, to reduce exposure to market volatility.

3. Long-term development guidance: Factories can help their brand partners build differentiated product quality and product barriers, to lock in long-term stable cooperative relationships. They should avoid solely chasing low-barrier commodity products that only lead to destructive price competition.

This article outlines the core pain points and industry trends of current trend-driven viral food categories, and provides actionable insights for catering-related service providers on business growth.

1. Industry trends: The pace of trend iteration in China's catering sector continues to accelerate, and the lifespans of viral categories are shrinking. A large number of newly launched viral brands have both short-term demand for rapid volume marketing and demand for transformation and adjustment after hype fades, creating significant untapped opportunity in the service market.

2. Core customer pain points: Most trend-driven brands are good at traffic marketing, but lack capabilities to build long-term operation systems, develop product barriers, run repeat customer programs, and manage risk. Most collapse directly once hype fades, leaving large unmet demand for professional services.

3. Solution direction: Service providers can develop tiered service offerings for this customer group: provide compliant short-term traffic marketing services, and support long-term growth by helping brands build product quality management systems and repeat customer operation frameworks. They can also develop versatile supporting supply chain services to help clients reduce trial and error costs during transformation.

This article analyzes the development patterns and risks of trend-driven viral food categories, and provides insights for commercial real estate platforms and catering investment platforms on leasing operations and risk mitigation.

1. Brand demand characteristics: To build their manufactured waiting crowd effect, viral trend brands have high demand for prime locations in core business districts, are willing to pay premium rents, and can drive large short-term traffic for platforms. However, these brands have very low operational stability and close stores extremely quickly when demand declines.

2. Operation management guidance: Platforms can bring in viral brands to boost short-term foot traffic, but should not over-rely on trend-driven categories. They need to optimize their tenant mix by pairing viral brands with a sufficient share of mature, stable brands to reduce the risk of widespread vacancy if multiple viral brands exit simultaneously.

3. Risk mitigation guidance: Before partnering with viral brands, platforms should pre-evaluate the brand's product strength and risk resilience. They should avoid onboarding unqualified brands just for short-term traffic, to prevent the increased re-leasing costs that come with rapid store closures. They should also pay close attention to quality control risks from brands' rapid franchise expansion, to avoid damage to the platform's own reputation.

This article presents new trends in the development of viral trend-driven food categories in China's current catering industry, summarizes the common development model of these categories, and provides rich case studies and research directions for catering industry researchers.

1. New industry trends: The lifecycles of new viral food categories in China's catering sector are continuously compressing, accelerating from annual turnover to quarterly turnover. The pace of trend iteration is growing faster and faster, and rapid rise and rapid decline has become the norm for new viral categories, with a large number of players entering the space quickly and exiting just as fast.

2. New industry problems: The catering industry is increasingly shifting toward short-term traffic-focused business models. Many new categories prioritize expansion speed over product refinement and long-term user reputation building. The industry as a whole faces widespread low barriers and homogenization, and some brands engage in false advertising and selling inferior goods, eroding overall industry trust.

3. Business model research: This article summarizes the universal three-step expansion and monetization playbook for viral trend categories: manufacturing waiting lines, building hype, and selling franchises. This is inherently a short-term traffic monetization model. The root causes of this model, its long-term sustainability, and its impact on the long-term development of the catering industry all deserve further in-depth research.