Bottle Planet began moving beyond a single baijiu business in 2019, when management concluded that long-term contraction could threaten the company's survival. By 2025, it had become a multi-brand group focused on lower-alcohol new beverages.
Chairman Tao Shiquan reported 25% year-on-year revenue growth from January through July 2025 and nineteen consecutive months of growth. Meijian plum wine grew about 20%, while fruit-wine brand Guolifang grew about 80%.
The numbers describe progress, but the transformation framework is more useful than one period's performance.
Accept That the Difficult Cycle May Be Long
Tao argued that contraction in Chinese consumer goods and alcohol would not reverse quickly. Excess capacity, high inventory, and distributor pressure could not be solved by presenting only the most favorable data.
His management principle was to discuss the company's own problems more than the industry's problems. Accurate diagnosis creates the possibility of improvement; polished language does not.
Bottle Planet divided its new-beverage strategy into three five-year stages. The first, from 2020 through 2024, emphasized youth, differentiation, niches, and e-commerce. The second aims for quality, scenario relevance, mainstream acceptance, and scale.
Operate as if Stability Is Temporary
The company uses a phrase stronger than “be alert in safety”: remain alert while already in danger.
Tao rejects the assumption that a company can build a stable base and then defend it indefinitely. In a changing market, the apparent core business can deteriorate quickly.
Bottle Planet therefore tries to remain entrepreneurial and repeatedly start new businesses rather than treating transformation as a one-time project.
A Three-Step Improvement Discipline
The company summarized its operating method in three stages.
First, survive with low consumption of resources. Cost discipline is not a temporary crisis measure but a long-term operating rule.
Second, remove ineffective work and improve what already produces value. Organizations accumulate redundant roles, meetings, and processes; activity is not the same as result.
Third, pursue breakthrough opportunities in new demand, higher-quality products, and potential hero products.
Bottle Planet supports the method with an internal operating system covering growth mechanisms, daily management, strategic alignment, problem solving, and customer-defect feedback from users back to R&D.
Small Occasions Can Create Large Markets
Instead of competing as a small participant in the largest alcohol categories, Bottle Planet sought leadership in narrower segments.
Meijian targeted plum wine occasions such as casual dining, spicy food, banquets, and relaxed social drinking. Guolifang developed dispersed occasions including simple mixed drinks at convenience stores, drinking outdoors, and relaxing at home.
The company believes that China's scale can make a collection of small occasions commercially meaningful. It also prefers occasions consumers already find interesting over attempts to educate them into an invented behavior.
Bottle Planet described Meijian and Guolifang as category-leading products within their niches and was developing a third long-term project, a 20% ABV rice-and-grape spirit inspired by historical Chinese distillation.
Help Retailers Sell an Occasion
The company positions itself as a supply-chain solution provider for innovative retailers. It developed chilled Meijian, late-night dining, and Guolifang mixing programs rather than only supplying bottles.
In one Meituan home-bar bundle, Bottle Planet reported more than RMB 8 million in sales and over 300,000 sets sold through online exposure and offline activation.
For distributors, the company began piloting more precise distribution, omnichannel marketing, and instant retail in cities including Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Changsha, and Chengdu. Those pilots were among its stronger growth markets in the first half of 2025.
Co-Creation Requires Different Relationship Rules
Bottle Planet articulated five promises for its distributor relationship: do not mislead, game, pressure, drain, or shift blame.
The language recognizes that brands and distributors face the same transformation problem. Deep distribution alone may no longer fit niche products and integrated online-offline demand.
The company instead combines product innovation, retailer scenario solutions, distributor capability building, and shared operating methods.
Its next challenge is organizational. Bottle Planet wants teams of people capable of starting businesses, not employees waiting to preserve an established one. The company argues that failure alone does not produce success; an organization able to evolve does.
The second growth curve therefore rests on more than low-alcohol products. It depends on truthful diagnosis, disciplined resource use, repeatable improvement, focused occasions, customer co-creation, and a team willing to begin again.