---
title: "From BiuTe to ZhenShiMei: A Retail-Savvy Distributor Representing 460+ Brands and Serving 1,000+ Supermarket Stores"
description: "In 2023, when we first approached brands under the name ZhenShiMei, some thought we were frauds. Today, when we meet those brands in various settings, they say, 'We didn't expect you to still be here; let's find an opportunity to cooperate well.' After initial difficulties, this company, founded less than two years ago, has entered a fast-growth track: its represented brands have grown from 80 to over 460, and it serves 51 chain supermarket systems with over 1,000 stores in total."
author: "任文青Andy"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2025-05-19"
language: "en"
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# From BiuTe to ZhenShiMei: A Retail-Savvy Distributor Representing 460+ Brands and Serving 1,000+ Supermarket Stores

> In 2023, when we first approached brands under the name ZhenShiMei, some thought we were frauds. Today, when we meet those brands in various settings, they say, 'We didn't expect you to still be here; let's find an opportunity to cooperate well.' After initial difficulties, this company, founded less than two years ago, has entered a fast-growth track: its represented brands have grown from 80 to over 460, and it serves 51 chain supermarket systems with over 1,000 stores in total.

"In 2023, when we first approached brands under the name ZhenShiMei, some thought we were frauds. Today, when we meet those brands in various settings, they say, 'We didn't expect you to still be here; let's find an opportunity to cooperate well.'" Zhou Xu, General Manager of ZhenShiMei Supply Chain, told me.

After initial difficulties, this company, founded less than two years ago, has entered a fast-growth track: its represented brands have grown from 80 to over 460, and it serves 51 chain supermarket systems with over 1,000 stores in total.

It is reported that ZhenShiMei's business now covers the three northeastern provinces, Shandong, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Anhui, Henan, and Jiangsu. In 2025, the number of partner brands will reach 600-800, and the combined sales of the two ZhenShiMei companies in Jinan and Shenyang will be between 4 and 5 billion RMB.

What kind of company is ZhenShiMei? Why has it grown so rapidly?

Recently, I had an in-depth conversation with General Manager Zhou. Zhou is not only the General Manager of ZhenShiMei Supply Chain Management Company but also the Vice President of BiuTe Commercial Group and the head of BiuTe's procurement business. Zhou shared with me ZhenShiMei's journey from 0 to 1, its business philosophy, and its upcoming development plans, especially its cooperation plans with upstream brands. She also elaborated on her deep thoughts about the current industry transformation.

Full of insights!

Here, I'll share the core content of our conversation with you in one article.

#### **Born from BiuTe**
#### **Now an Independent Supply Chain Company**

Since this year, more brands have wanted to connect with you through New Distribution. I can clearly feel that ZhenShiMei is building a positive influence in the industry. But many people don't know much about ZhenShiMei; they only know it was initiated by BiuTe. Zhou, could you take this opportunity to introduce the background of ZhenShiMei? I asked at the beginning of the conversation.

ZhenShiMei was registered in July 2023. On August 15 of that year, we officially opened our warehouse in Jinan—the first truckload of goods was sent from the warehouse to our customers, Zhou said.

In fact, in March 2023, BiuTe's founder and chairman, Mr. Meng, had the idea of establishing ZhenShiMei.

It can be said that ZhenShiMei is an important move by Mr. Meng to drive industry transformation, based on a comparison of the development stages of Chinese and foreign retail industries and deep thinking about China's current situation, at a time when China's retail is undergoing transformation.

In the past two years, BiuTe has successively taken over Carrefour and Yonghui stores in the northeast. Many are curious: with supermarkets generally declining, how did BiuTe in the northeast suddenly rise to prominence?

To some extent, BiuTe's development greatly benefits from proactive supply chain transformation.

As early as 2019, BiuTe voluntarily abandoned the traditional supermarket backend model and operated entirely around the business logic of large chain supermarkets: "complete product range, low prices."

We don't need special discounts, but at least we should get the same prices as distributors, and work with suppliers to provide customers with competitively priced products—this has been our goal all along.

ZhenShiMei Supply Chain is a consolidation warehouse initiated by BiuTe within the framework of Baoting Commercial Alliance. When it was established in July 2023, including BiuTe, there were 18 supermarket systems, all members of Baoting Commercial Alliance, and they were also the founding shareholders of Jinan ZhenShiMei.

After more than a year of development, we now have 51 supermarket system customers, totaling 1,037 stores, and we are no longer limited to Baoting Commercial Alliance members. By the end of May, we estimate this will increase to 60-65 systems. They are distributed across Shandong, Hebei, the three northeastern provinces, Inner Mongolia, Anhui, Henan, and Jiangsu.

Moreover, the brands we cooperate with have increased from 80 to 460. Our goal by the end of this year is 600-800.

Previously, BiuTe established dozens of trading companies to act as agents for different brands. After Jinan ZhenShiMei, we then established Shenyang ZhenShiMei, integrating the businesses of these trading companies. In addition to BiuTe, Shenyang ZhenShiMei has also developed 11 external system customers.

The relationship between them:

> First, the two ZhenShiMei companies are independent, but I am the legal representative of both, and the teams are shared.
>
> Second, Jinan ZhenShiMei is mainly responsible for provinces outside the northeast. Shenyang ZhenShiMei's business is in the northeast and has an upstream-downstream relationship with BiuTe.
>
> Third, both ZhenShiMei companies belong to the same holding company, and the equity structure for an IPO has been designed.

That is to say, ZhenShiMei was born relying on BiuTe, but now it is an independent supply chain company, and BiuTe is just one of its customers. This year, the combined sales target for the two ZhenShiMei companies is 4-5 billion RMB.

#### **Focus on Serving Chain Supermarkets**
#### **Be a Retail-Savvy Distributor**

"Be a retail-savvy distributor"—is that our business positioning? How should we understand it? Seeing this sentence written on the wall of their office, I couldn't help but ask Zhou.

Besides this, there is another sentence: Focus on serving chain supermarkets, Zhou said.

When ZhenShiMei was first established, we thought of the concept of supermarket joint procurement. As we developed, we also clarified our positioning: focus on serving chain supermarkets and be a retail-savvy distributor.

These two sentences are simple, but they have deep implications.

First, we come from a supermarket background, so focusing on serving the chain supermarket group allows us to leverage our strengths.

Second, we consider ourselves distributors. In fact, from the early transformation of BiuTe, we realized that it's not about eliminating middlemen, but about eliminating the high costs caused by inefficient middlemen.

As a "mega-distributor," ZhenShiMei differs from traditional distributors in the following ways:

First, we only earn profits from scale.

ZhenShiMei Supply Chain's price to customers is our purchase price plus a 3% warehousing cost. After establishing the headquarters team last year, we increased it to 5%.

Second, we integrate customer demand first, then reverse-integrate products.

Traditional distributors first have products, then find customers, or push products to customers. Our advantage is that we have customers first, and these customers, whether in terms of their stickiness with us or their scale, have advantages over traditional distributors.

Of course, since this year, we have also been reflecting that we need to do more in serving customers, especially as we expand to more regions and more non-Baoting Commercial Alliance customers.

Currently, our Jinan office has over 120 people, mainly divided into three departments: procurement, ordering, and sales. Currently, the procurement team is the largest. Next, we will expand and strengthen the sales team to better develop the market, serve customers, and help brands with distribution and promotion.

In some regions, we will set up local specialists who will check in-store product displays and the number of SKUs distributed. They also check whether products are placed on end caps, whether promotional prices meet standards, and whether pricing is reasonable compared to competitors. They need to identify these issues.

ZhenShiMei has its own advantages at the start, but during development, we are constantly calibrating our role in the industry value chain. We are a service provider, serving both downstream customers and upstream brands.

#### **Not Disrupting Manufacturers' Price Systems**
#### **Bringing Incremental Growth to Brands**

Serving both downstream customers and upstream brands is good, but as a new entrant, you have an impact on the existing distribution networks of brands, especially big brands. For example, your ex-warehouse price only adds 5 percentage points—wouldn't that easily disrupt the brand's price system? I pressed.

Our general principle in cooperating with brands is: do not disrupt the manufacturer's price system, and bring incremental growth to brands, Zhou said.

Indeed, what brands worry about most is their price system being disrupted. If we only add 3 percentage points (now 3+2=5) to customers, how do we avoid that? At the very beginning, we had no experience and directly gave customers 3 percentage points. Other customers who got wind of this would approach the brand.

Later, we designed a 3+N (now 5+N) mechanism.

That is, based on different category attributes and the sensitivity of different brands, each product adds an N on top of the 3. The principle is that our supply price to customers is slightly lower than the price they get from distributors.

But at the end of the month, the finance department returns the final N to customers. Now, all our product shipment prices follow the distributor price system.

This approach allows us to adhere to earning only profits from scale while avoiding disruption to the brand's price system.

Another benefit of this approach is preventing customers from setting low prices. Supermarkets habitually price based on cost. If we directly give them too low a price, their pricing will be below market price, which means they are giving away profits they should have earned—an unnecessary loss. So our current mechanism is also about saving money and profits for customers.

Indeed, gaining brand recognition is a very difficult process. There are several obstacles.

First, brands don't believe you can grow their existing business.

Second, they won't easily give you the brand for business growth; they have to consider distributor relationships.

But now, more and more brands are cooperating with us, including first- and second-tier big brands. If they worry that large circulation products are hard to handle, we can start with new products or cooperate in co-creation.

In cooperating with brands, we still advocate reaching consensus.

What does that mean?

It means if the brand is willing to let us do it, and our customers are willing for us to serve them, everyone can reach consensus. We believe we should not harm manufacturers or customers, because once a bad reputation forms, it spreads and we can't afford it.

This year, we expect the number of partner brands to increase to 600-800. Once we start cooperation, we hope it will be long-term. So unless there are major issues, our approach is to promote the replacement of specific products rather than easily giving up cooperation with brands.

**Final Thoughts**

At the end of the conversation, Zhou also shared with me ZhenShiMei's key priorities for cooperation with upstream manufacturers in 2025:

First, for products with categories but no brands, focus on manufacturers and hero SKUs.

For example, in daily necessities, if two manufacturers can cover a category, don't let eight manufacturers do it. Since we cooperate with a factory, we should make that factory bigger.

Second, do deep distribution for brands, and work with head brands to promote customized and co-branded products.

For brands we already cooperate with, we promote wider product coverage among customers and ensure good sell-through.

ZhenShiMei is a super distributor. Other distributors first have products, then customers. Our advantage is that we have customers first, then products, Zhou said.

Brand product presentations

In 2025, we will focus on co-creation with head brands, and we have already started cooperation with some brands.

This is also very important for brands. Supermarkets are now adjusting their product structures, pursuing differentiated products. Seizing the opportunity to co-create with more channels is something brands must grasp. In 2025, we welcome more brands to cooperate and launch new products!


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