**Core Summary** New bulk snack stores are surging ahead, while the three snack giants can't boost sales despite price cuts. Has the snack food landscape fundamentally changed?
The snack food industry in 2025 is bustling with activity, with snack stores now more densely distributed than restaurants on many streets. From Snack Busy and Good Want Come conquering lower-tier markets to Hi Mart and Good Sale leading discount trends in premium shopping centers, young consumers carry shopping baskets through neatly arranged aisles, with value-for-money becoming their sole purchasing criterion.
However, this lively scene has little connection to the three established snack giants: Laiyifen, Three Squirrels Inc., and BESTORE. Even more concerning than their quieter stores are their recently released H1 2025 financial reports. Laiyifen, the earliest to go public, shifted from profit to loss in H1 2025, with total losses reaching 41.52 million yuan, marking the largest semi-annual loss since listing. During the same period, Three Squirrels Inc. saw revenue growth without profit growth, with net profit declining 52.22% year-over-year. BESTORE posted a net loss of 93.55 million yuan in H1, plummeting 491.59% year-over-year.
The collective decline of the three giants reveals a harsh reality: established giants that once rose through premium positioning and marketing dividends are being impacted by consumer waves pursuing ultimate value-for-money. In this rapidly changing environment, will the three giants recover or be abandoned by consumers?
**Three Giants "Overthrown" by Newcomers**
The snack industry landscape began quietly changing two years ago. In 2023, BESTORE's net profit plummeted over 80%, and Laiyifen's revenue also began declining. In November 2023, BESTORE's leader Yang Yinfen wrote in an open letter to all employees that the company was facing the most difficult challenge since its founding - not just struggling to survive, but questioning whether it could survive at all.
Despite challenges, Three Squirrels Inc. returned to 10 billion yuan revenue in 2024, regaining dignity for the established players.
Unfortunately, this victory didn't last long. In H1 2025, Three Squirrels Inc., having just emerged from its "darkest hour," achieved revenue of 5.478 billion yuan, up 7.94% year-over-year, but net profit was halved. BESTORE's situation was even more severe, with revenue declining 27.21% to 2.829 billion yuan and net profit dropping 491.59% to 94 million yuan. While Laiyifen's revenue grew 8.21% year-over-year to 1.94 billion yuan, its net profit attributable to shareholders plummeted 439.6%, resulting in losses of 50.68 million yuan.
Addressing the downturn, the three giants provided reasons in their financial reports. Laiyifen's management attributed revenue decline to store structure adjustments. Three Squirrels Inc. cited four specific reasons: rising raw material costs for nuts, changes in online platform traffic structure, increased marketing expenses for offline distribution expansion, and rising depreciation and amortization costs for new properties. BESTORE's main reason was price reductions on some products and adjustments to product and store structures.
Despite different reasons, the performance volatility of the three giants reflects ongoing transformation in the snack industry. The decline of established players is evident in recent financial reports: BESTORE experienced its first negative revenue growth since listing in 2023, and Laiyifen's total store count decreased 16.28% compared to the previous year in 2024. Behind the collapse of premium snacks is a subtle market trend shift - consumers' significantly increased price sensitivity, with "ultimate value-for-money" becoming a trending keyword.
Meanwhile, bulk discount snack stores began emerging, with leading brands like Snack Busy and Good Want Come capitalizing on consumption downgrade trends to expand in lower-tier markets. In 2023, Snack Busy and Zhao Yiming Snack strategically merged into Snack Busy Group, with combined stores exceeding 6,500. Good Want Come accelerated expansion in lower-tier cities in East and North China, with new leaders forming clear differentiated competition with the three giants.
"Low prices" have become the killer weapon for bulk snack stores sweeping the market. Walking through streets and alleys, more eye-catching than colorful logos are slogans directly addressing consumer pain points: "We're Very Cheap," "Come Here for Snacks," and "Even One Item at Wholesale Price." Under the low-price offensive of 1-yuan Wahaha mineral water, 1.8-yuan Pepsi Cola, and 9-yuan 5-pack jelly cups, large numbers of price-conscious consumers are easily captured. When people discover that nuts of the same quality cost only half the price at bulk stores, the "premium filter" represented by the three giants instantly shatters.
Clearly, low-price strategies combined with near-field consumption scenarios are fundamentally reshaping the mainstream offline channel landscape of the snack industry. Snack consumption is shifting from premiumization and branding to a new order centered on ultimate value-for-money and convenience.
Facing the impact of the new industry order, while the three giants recognize changing consumer trends, their responses appear sluggish. In contrast, emerging leading brands quickly seized opportunities, not only establishing competitive barriers through low prices but also capturing more market share through "land-grabbing" store expansion and channel penetration.
In terms of scale, from 2023 to 2024, Wanchen Group behind Good Want Come increased stores by nearly 10,000, while Three Squirrels Inc.'s stores dropped from over 1,000 at peak to around 300. Regarding channels, leading brands like "Good Want Come" and "Snack Busy" are rooted in communities and townships, firmly binding large numbers of lower-tier market users through "near-field consumption," while the three giants' stores are relatively concentrated in higher-tier cities.
It can be said that under the strong pincer attack of new players, the three giants have fallen behind comprehensively in scale, pricing, and channels. In just two years, the snack industry has changed dramatically.
**Trapped in Self-Rescue Dilemmas**
Facing comprehensive losses in channels and pricing, the three snack giants haven't sat idly by. As bulk snack brands continuously erode the market with low-price strategies, the three giants attempted "self-rescue" through price cuts, product expansion, and accelerated store opening, hoping to replicate newcomers' success paths. However, these actions didn't bring expected turnarounds; instead, they plunged them into deeper difficulties.
For "Premium Snack Stock No. 1" BESTORE, price cutting was undoubtedly a difficult choice: concerned about brand value damage on one hand, yet having to face customer loss risks on the other. At the end of 2023, BESTORE initiated the largest price adjustment since its founding, covering 300 products with average member price reductions of 22% and maximum reductions of 45%. For example, roasted sausage prices dropped from 84.9 yuan per jin to 49.9 yuan per jin, and crispy winter dates fell from 7.9 yuan to 5.9 yuan per bag.
This "trading price for volume" approach brought some customer return in the short term, but at the cost of rapidly declining profits. After revenue decline in 2023, BESTORE's Q1 2024 net profit attributable to shareholders dropped 58% year-over-year, with profitability continuing to deteriorate. By H1 2025 financial reports, net profit plummeted even further.
Price cuts didn't bring the expected turnaround. BESTORE's shift from "premium" to "high value-for-money" still faces bleak prospects: profit margins are further compressed after substantial price cuts, while actual prices show no clear advantage compared to bulk snack brands. For instance, in BESTORE's Tmall flagship store, hot-selling products like meat snacks, cookies, and nuts are generally priced between 16-50 yuan, far higher than bulk stores' small-package products costing just a few yuan. Facing ultimate low prices, new leaders remain more attractive.
Three Squirrels Inc. also attempted the "thin profit, high volume" route. In early 2023, when snack discounting emerged, the company proposed a "premium value-for-money" strategy with initial success. Three Squirrels Inc.'s 2023 full-year revenue was 7.115 billion yuan, down 2.45% year-over-year, but net profit attributable to shareholders reached 220 million yuan, up nearly 70% year-over-year, laying groundwork for 2024 performance.
However, by 2025, Three Squirrels Inc.'s profitability declined again, with H1 net profit significantly shrinking. Revenue from its main nut business also showed negative growth, with gross margins declining 2.64% compared to the same period last year. The semi-annual report mentioned this was related to rising raw material costs in this category. Following the "high value-for-money" route, the company obviously couldn't reduce costs through price increases, intensifying profit pressure.
To expand offline markets, Three Squirrels Inc. announced acquisitions of "Love Snacks," "Love Discount," and Zhiyang Foods in 2024, attempting to accelerate offline expansion through external forces. Particularly, the 200 million yuan acquisition of Hunan local offline chain "Love Snacks" aimed to quickly fill offline gaps through its 1,800 stores. However, after eight months, cooperation ultimately failed due to disagreement on core terms. Subsequently, Three Squirrels Inc. chose strategic cooperation with Snack Optimization, continuing attempts to break through offline and lower-tier markets.
Meanwhile, the three giants all expanded second growth curves. Laiyifen ventured into liquor, coffee, sparkling water and other segments, while Three Squirrels Inc. diversified into sanitary pads, pets, alcohol and other new brands. However, these cross-industry attempts didn't bring breakthrough growth, mostly remaining peripheral businesses unable to form new support points while main businesses weakened.
Additionally, the three giants tried different retail models. In August 2024, Laiyifen opened its first warehouse membership store in Shanghai, attempting to achieve growth through the Sam's model, while Three Squirrels Inc. opened its first lifestyle store at its new Wuhu headquarters in Anhui. These models are still in exploration stages, difficult to replicate on large scales in the short term, with limited effects on performance recovery.
Overall, the three giants' "self-rescue" actions seem like desperate measures, with multiple overlapping measures instead dragging down main business profitability, trapping them in a vicious cycle of price cuts, expansion, and diversification without breakthrough.
**Neither New nor Old Players Have It Easy**
Previously, the three giants leveraged consumption upgrade and e-commerce era dividends, rising through brand IP, premium marketing, and precise pricing. Now, under various changes in consumer trends and channels, established players' logic no longer applies, while new players like Snack Busy and Good Want Come reconstruct industry patterns with "low prices + massive SKUs."
While established players remain stuck in price-cutting and store expansion dilemmas, new players have entered ten-thousand-store competition.
Taking "Good Want Come" as an example, since Wanchen Group's brand merger in 2023, total stores have exceeded 15,000 in less than two years, opening an average of about 8 new stores daily in H1 this year, covering most provinces nationwide with high penetration in Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang, and Shandong. Since merging with Zhao Yiming Snack, Snack Busy has grown from 4,000 to over 14,000 stores by H1 2025, with 66% coverage in counties and townships, with substantial stores (about 58%) located in lower-tier markets.
This scale expansion reinforces low-price strategies, making new brands appear infinitely promising. However, the "thin profit, high volume" model also brings profit pressure. Taking Wanchen Group as an example, H1 operating revenue was 22.583 billion yuan, up 106.89% year-over-year, with snack category revenue reaching 22.345 billion yuan, but category gross margin was only 11.49%. Despite significant revenue increases, gross margin only rose 0.62% compared to the same period last year, far below traditional brands' 25%-30%.
Similar to Good Want Come's pace, Mingming Busy Group's revenue has risen linearly in recent years. According to prospectus data, 2022, 2023, and 2024 revenues were 4.286 billion yuan, 10.295 billion yuan, and 39.344 billion yuan respectively. During the same periods, adjusted net profits were 81 million yuan, 235 million yuan, and 913 million yuan respectively. Despite steady net profit growth, gross margins barely increased from 7.5% to 7.6% from 2022 to 2024, with 2024 net profit margin only 2.1%. While the "thin profit, high volume" model brings year-over-year revenue growth, actual profitability remains weak.
Meanwhile, new leading brands' rapid expansion heavily relies on franchise systems. By end-2024, Snack Busy had only 15 self-operated stores versus over 14,000 franchise stores, accounting for 99.9%. While average daily orders increased, once franchisee orders decline, overall performance becomes highly susceptible, with inherent concerns about business model instability.
To maintain competitiveness, Good Want Come and Snack Busy continuously expand SKUs: Good Want Come's total SKUs exceed 2,000, while Snack Busy surpasses 3,300, requiring stores to carry at least 1,800 SKUs. High-frequency new product launches bring rich choices but also lead to serious homogenization, with increasing white-label products in stores and difficulty building consumer loyalty.
Today, snack industry competition has shifted from single categories to hard discount full-category supermarket battles. As Three Squirrels Inc. founder Zhang Liaoyuan said, 2025 will be the true inaugural year transitioning from bulk snacks to bulk snacks+ and full-category discount supermarkets. Whether established three giants, new brands like Love Snacks and Snack Optimization, or hard discount players like Hi Mart, Good Sale, and Sam's, every participant in this track faces challenges.
Comments