DeYa Milk, once favored for its imported milk source and value-for-money positioning, is seeing its "imported allure" fade. Amid the comprehensive rise of domestic dairy products in recent years and intensified price wars due to industry supply-demand imbalances, consumer enthusiasm for imported dairy is not what it used to be. Affected by this, Pinlive Food (300897.SZ), the parent company of the DeYa dairy brand, has been unable to stem the decline in its performance. From 2022 to 2025, the company's revenue fell for four consecutive years, with the 2025 revenue of 791 million yuan also marking a new low since its listing.
In an effort to build new growth drivers, Pinlive Food is shifting some of its business focus to the cheese category. In 2025, its self-owned cheese factory in Shanghai's Songjiang district achieved stable mass production, with core products like hand-shredded cheese entering regular production. However, facing market barriers established by domestic and international cheese brands such as Miaokelan Duo, Bel, and Yili, and the reality that its cheese operations have not yet effectively contributed to revenue, whether Pinlive Food can leverage this "second growth curve" to emerge from the downturn in its main business is filled with uncertainties and challenges.
01. Dairy Revenue Declines for Consecutive Years, "Imported Allure" Fades The dairy products under the "DeYa" brand created by Pinlive Food are primarily produced by foreign suppliers in countries like Germany and Spain. The "imported milk source" label of DeYa Milk was once a premium pricing tool. In 2020, the year of the company's listing, revenue from the "DeYa" brand was 1.094 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.18%. Although the gross margin for the same period slightly decreased compared to the previous year, it still reached 33.62%.
It is important to note that this "Chinese brand + overseas OEM" model has advantages such as low initial investment and rapid expansion; its shortcomings are equally apparent: limited supply chain bargaining power and vulnerability to macroeconomic fluctuations.
For instance, in 2021, although the company's dairy series achieved double-digit growth, factors including rising overseas procurement costs and increased shipping expenses led to a significant year-on-year drop of 10.16 percentage points in the gross margin of the dairy series. In 2023, the company's performance turned from profit to loss. Pinlive Food attributed part of the reason to pressure on the European supply chain due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and inflation driving up import costs, resulting in reduced profits.
However, the consecutive four-year revenue decline of the company's dairy series since 2022 cannot be simply attributed to external factors. A deeper reason lies in a fundamental shift in the competitive landscape of the domestic dairy industry.
Since September 2021, weak market demand coupled with concentrated capacity release has led to supply-demand imbalances, sending raw milk prices into a prolonged downward trend. This situation also triggered "price wars" among dairy companies. In this context, constrained by its operational model, DeYa Milk found it difficult to compete with the low-price strategies of domestic milk. From a product category perspective, products like ambient white milk and basic yogurt have low differentiation, making it hard for consumers to perceive significant quality differences. Meanwhile, the dairy consumption structure is quietly changing, with segments like fresh milk gradually becoming the main growth drivers. Coupled with consumers' diminishing fascination with the "imported milk"光环, the interplay of multiple factors ultimately led to the continued weak performance of DeYa Milk.
In 2025, the dairy series still contributed over 70% of the company's revenue, but its revenue scale had fallen below 600 million yuan. The gross margin for this product series decreased by 2.77 percentage points year-on-year to 12.20%. The company's overall gross margin was 16.24%. While this level is slightly higher than that of Tianrun Dairy and Qishi Dairy, it still lags behind listed peers like Bright Dairy, Huangshi Group, and Yili, placing it in the middle to lower tier of the industry.
02. Dual-Driven Strategy on Douyin, Yet Online Channel Still Contracts Facing sustained performance pressure on its core category, Pinlive Food has attempted changes on both the channel and product category fronts.
On the channel front, online channels have consistently been Pinlive Food's primary revenue source. The company's online business is mainly divided into two models: e-commerce self-operation and e-commerce platform sales, with the latter primarily relying on traditional channels like JD.com and Taobao. In 2023 and 2024, revenue from the JD.com system accounted for 18.9% and 21.74% of the company's total revenue, respectively. However, as traffic红利 gradually diminishes and platform advertising costs continue to rise, the revenue growth rates from the JD.com system in those two years were -18.43% and -10.27%, respectively, showing consecutive negative growth.
To address this, Pinlive Food made content e-commerce its core breakthrough in 2025. The annual report indicates the company focused on Douyin as its core platform, increasing investment and adopting a dual-driven model of "brand self-broadcasting + influencer distribution." In 2025, the company's sales revenue on the Douyin channel increased. However, due to a continued year-on-year decline of 23.78% in revenue contributed by the JD.com system, dropping to 145 million yuan, the overall online performance was dragged down. Ultimately, the company's total online channel revenue fell by 5.31% year-on-year to 540 million yuan.
On the product category front, the company is advancing a multi-category expansion strategy centered on cheese. The cheese赛道 is seen as a "blue ocean" in the dairy industry, with domestic per capita consumption far below that of Europe and the US, indicating promising growth potential. However, the current market size is still small, consumer habits need cultivation, and product homogenization is prominent. Pinlive Food's cheese factory in Shanghai initially put two production lines into operation: one for small round cheese and one for hand-shredded cheese. The company's management stated in a recent earnings briefing that the factory achieved stable mass production in 2025, with core products like hand-shredded cheese entering regular production.
However, the factory is still in the capacity ramp-up and product cultivation phase and has not yet effectively contributed to revenue. In the long term, whether Pinlive Food can achieve breakthroughs in product differentiation, consumption scenario expansion, and brand recognition will determine if the cheese category can become the company's "second growth curve."
Overall, the effectiveness of Pinlive Food's current proactive adjustments has not been fully reflected in its financial reports. In the first quarter of 2026, the company achieved operating revenue of 188 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.78%, showing signs of recovery in revenue growth. However, net profit attributable to shareholders was a loss of 1.7522 million yuan, a sharp year-on-year decline of 129.68%. The company's management stated it will continue to improve operational efficiency and profitability through effective measures such as increasing product innovation, optimizing product cost structure, and implementing refined management.
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