Following successful brand partnerships with Liubiju, Samyang Foods, Zhou Hei Ya, and Milkana, Yanker Shop Food Co.,Ltd. has once again deployed its collaboration strategy. On October 8, Yanker Shop Food announced a partnership with Korean food giant Nongshim to launch kimchi-flavored potato chips. Nongshim, known for iconic products like kimchi ramen and Shin Ramyun, represents Korean flavors for many consumers. This collaboration involves Nongshim contributing its fermented kimchi flavor research expertise to the seasoning, while Yanker Shop Food applies its sophisticated baking techniques to infuse the kimchi flavor into potato chips.
Industry analysts believe that Yanker Shop Food's choice to use baked potato products as the vehicle for brand collaborations aims to leverage the brand influence and flavor advantages of partnerships to inject new vitality into this category and further address category shortcomings.
Established in 2005, Yanker Shop Food currently focuses on spicy braised snacks, baked potato products, deep-sea snacks, egg snacks, dried fruits and nuts, and konjac jelly puddings. Beyond its main brand "Yanker Shop Food," the company has developed sub-brands including "Da Mo Wang" for konjac vegetarian tripe, "Dan Huang" for quail eggs, "31° Fresh" for deep-sea snacks, "Han Dou Ba Ba" for casual baking, "Konjac Perfect Score" for konjac jelly, and "Shu Huo" for potato snacks.
According to recently released interim results, Yanker Shop Food achieved revenue of 2.941 billion yuan in the first half of 2025, up 19.58% year-over-year, with net profit attributable to shareholders of 373 million yuan, increasing 16.7% year-over-year. By category performance, spicy braised snacks, dried fruit jellies, deep-sea snacks, and egg snacks grew 47.05%, 9.01%, 11.93%, and 29.57% respectively. Among these, casual konjac products under the spicy braised snacks category achieved revenue of 790 million yuan, surging 155.1% year-over-year. However, baked potato products, the company's second-largest category, experienced a notable decline, falling 18.42% year-over-year to 459 million yuan.
Baked potato products were once an important growth driver for Yanker Shop Food. In 2019, when the company's net profit first exceeded 100 million yuan, baked products (including potato chips) surpassed traditional soy product series to become the company's primary growth engine, achieving revenue of 410 million yuan with 90.26% year-over-year growth. The company attributed this to "catering to explosive demand growth for meal replacement foods during the pandemic." Subsequently, from 2020 to 2024, this category's growth rate gradually declined from 66% to 17.31%, before experiencing a downturn in the first half of 2025.
Industry observers believe Yanker Shop Food's deployment of brand collaborations in baked potato products aims to address this weakness, driven both by current growth pressures in this category and the company's proven successful collaboration experience. After all, flavor collaborations can be seen across Yanker Shop Food's faster-growing business lines.
In the rapidly growing casual konjac products segment, Yanker Shop Food partnered with century-old Chinese brand Liubiju to launch sesame sauce-flavored konjac vegetarian tripe, and collaborated with "turkey noodle originator" Samyang Foods to launch Samyang turkey sauce-flavored spicy konjac. In the equally impressive deep-sea snacks business, Yanker Shop Food successively partnered with Milkana to launch "31° Fresh Bursting Cod Sausage" and collaborated with Zhou Hei Ya to introduce "31° Fresh Tiger Skin Cod Tofu (Zhou Hei Ya Classic Flavor)." The market has responded positively to these collaborative products. According to Euromonitor data, Da Mo Wang sesame vegetarian tripe ranked first nationally in 2024 sales, and in March this year, Da Mo Wang sesame vegetarian tripe achieved monthly sales exceeding 100 million yuan. According to public information, tiger skin cod tofu has performed exceptionally since its 2024 launch, once topping Tmall's fish tofu category sales rankings.
Renowned strategic positioning expert and founder of Fujian Huace Brand Positioning Consulting, Zhan Junhao, believes that Yanker Shop Food's flavor collaborations differ from traditional IP partnerships by deeply integrating into the products themselves, utilizing partners' flavor advantages for innovation to enhance product strength. Through cooperation with well-known brands in different fields, the company can leverage partners' brand influence and consumer base to improve its own products' market appeal and competitiveness. This collaboration with Nongshim continues its established flavor partnership strategy, as Nongshim's Korean flavors enjoy high recognition and can help Yanker Shop Food expand into international markets.
"However, the baked potato products market faces intense competition, with international brands like Lay's, Pringles, and Orion holding first-mover advantages, alongside domestic brands like Oishi and Copico entering the market. Moreover, kimchi-flavored potato chips are already relatively common in the market, offering limited novelty for consumers. Whether collaborative products can reverse the situation remains uncertain," Zhan Junhao noted.
Regarding questions about the Nongshim collaboration and related matters, attempts to reach Yanker Shop Food for comment were unsuccessful by press time.
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