Unlike snack discount stores that sell long-shelf-life pre-packaged products, the fresh-made snack track, which has risen rapidly with features such as short shelf life and fresh and healthy attributes, has become a new force that cannot be ignored. In this regard, a snack brand CEO once mentioned in an internal speech, 'Three snack business models—offline specialty stores, fresh-made snacks, and bulk snacks—have fully blossomed.' The author notes that in recent years, besides hot snack discount brands such as Snacks Busy, Zhao Yiming Snacks, and Snacks Youming, fresh-roasted snack brands led by Xueji Roasted Goods and Panda Momo have successively attracted capital favor. Last year, the nut and roasted goods chain brand Xueji Roasted Goods announced the completion of a 600 million yuan Series A financing, and another fresh snack roasted goods brand 'Panda Momo' even secured two rounds of financing within just half a year, with the angel round reaching tens of millions. Facing the 'encirclement' of these two different forces, leisure snack giants such as Bestore and Three Squirrels are also actively responding, such as incubating sub-segment specialty stores for sugar control and children's snacks, entering the snack discount track to incubate sub-brands, and opening community snack stores. However, based on the above three different snack business models, an industry insider said, 'Leisure food has entered a stock period, and pressure on price systems, user composition, supply chain, and other aspects is inevitable.' In the author's view, when competition is unavoidable, the one with 'depth' will win in a head-on clash. Full Blossom Although leisure snacks are extremely hot, this market is shifting from rapid incremental growth to slight growth. According to iiMedia Consulting data, from 2010 to 2022, the market size of China's leisure food industry grew from 410 billion yuan to 1.165 trillion yuan, and it is expected to reach 1.238 trillion yuan by 2027. Although the growth rate is gradually slowing down, the snack business model has been constructed into the three different models mentioned above: specialty snacks, bulk snacks, and fresh-made snacks. However, due to the fresher product attributes of the latter, the author believes it is more appropriate to call it 'fresh-made snacks'. Unlike other categories, the leisure snack track relies more on channel changes. Initially, it was mainly in the form of bulk sales and wholesale, with mom-and-pop stores as the main sales channels. Later, traditional supermarkets and hypermarkets became the main sales force, and local snack brands such as Qiaqia and Youyou rose. As consumer demand continued to upgrade, snack specialty stores such as Bestore and Lai Yifen achieved rapid store expansion. Around 2010, emerging snack brands such as Three Squirrels and Baicaowei successfully seized online traffic and rose rapidly with the help of e-commerce platforms. In addition, some snack specialty stores in the above stages also did not miss this dividend period, and the two together formed the first major model of the snack track currently seen in the industry, namely specialty snacks. The second major model is bulk snacks, commonly referred to in the industry as discount snacks. Affected by the epidemic, offline customer traffic continued to decline, and consumer demand gradually returned to rationality. During this period, snack discount brands with a business model of high cost performance, low operating costs, and high operational efficiency became one of the high-growth models due to their multiple advantages in category, pricing, and proximity. Different from the redundant models of traditional channels with entry fees and display fees, bulk snacks bypass distributors and directly connect with upstream production ends, winning greater bargaining power through large-scale procurement, thereby benefiting consumers. In the current landscape, brands such as Snacks Busy, Snacks Youming, and Zhao Yiming Snacks have all entered the thousand-store stage, sprinting towards the ten-thousand-store scale, and the entire discount snack industry is experiencing a period of intense horizontal competition. In addition, the integration and merger model of 'big fish eating small fish' has begun, and some leading brands choose to expand their competitiveness by investing in mid-to-small brands to cope with involution. The third major model is fresh-made snacks. Compared with snack discount brands that sell long-shelf-life pre-packaged products, fresh-made snacks are upgraded from traditional street-side roasted goods stores, mainly selling short-shelf-life fresh roasted nuts and other products, with shelf life mostly calculated in days to ensure the best tasting period. However, this model is still in the development stage of 'big water but not big fish,' with an average SKU of 100-500 and an average customer price of about 50 yuan, and no brand has reached the thousand-store scale. Even the leading Xueji Roasted Goods has only maintained about 800 stores. In the author's view, although the third model currently accounts for a relatively small share, as the entire snack track enters a period of stock competition, the fresh-made snack model, which freshens snack categories and has healthier nutritional attributes, will become the next ten-thousand-store model. In a Head-on Clash, the 'Deep' One Wins Previously, an industry insider told the author, 'Even the hottest snack discount track currently has only a three-year dividend period.' It is undeniable that with the transformation of consumption habits and the stimulation of channels such as live-stream e-commerce, this model will maintain rapid growth in the next decade, and the industry has internally estimated that the store opening space is as high as 70,000 stores. The reason why snack discount brands have the gene for ten-thousand stores mainly stems from the following four advantages, as pointed out by Zhao Ding, founder of Zhao Yiming Snacks: First, the franchise policy binds the lower-tier market; second, an excellent single-store model; third, relatively low customer prices; and fourth, a larger market scale. So, does fresh-made snacks have the same gene model? In the author's view, the answer is yes. First, the roasted goods category has a long history and is sufficiently popular, requiring little user education, and the consumer group is very broad, from the elderly to children, with a wide coverage. Even in lower-tier markets, there is a certain demand, which is the fundamental soil for fresh-made snacks to enter the track with the roasted goods category. Second, a smaller community store model effectively reduces store expansion costs. Compared with the large and exquisite stores of snack discount brands, which are often over 120 square meters, fresh-made snack stores are mostly around 80 square meters and are located closer to communities. For franchisees, the initial startup cost will be significantly reduced, and the burden of opening a store will also be correspondingly reduced, laying a good foundation for accelerated store expansion in the later stage. In addition, compared with large supermarkets with declining traffic, community formats hold a core advantage in convenience, are the future concentration of customer traffic, and are conducive to fresh-made snacks obtaining a continuous stream of users. Traditional roasted goods stores are mainly mom-and-pop models with too low a degree of chain operation. Current fresh-made snacks have polished a relatively mature store model and built a core supply chain, able to leverage larger procurement volumes and considerable sales to win more visible benefits for franchisees. Based on this 'deep' advantage, the commercial barriers of fresh-made snacks will be further consolidated. Therefore, for fresh-made snacks and discount snacks, which both have the gene for ten-thousand stores, future competition is naturally unavoidable. In the author's view, in a head-on clash, the 'deep' one wins. How to better control supply sources, polish store models, and closely grasp users has become the three major levels that major brands need to dig deep into.