Source丨New Distribution Finance Hema is innovating with camellia flowers, not only bringing them to the dining table but now also to the dressing table, clearly exploring the maximization of industrial chain value. Behind this is the era of supermarket private-label products entering deep source origins. Hema Innovates with Camellia Flowers In South China, especially in Guangdong, camellia oil is known as "Oriental Olive Oil." It is favored for its fragrant, mellow aroma, refreshing scent, bright color, smooth texture, and rich nutrition. As people have increasingly prioritized healthy living in recent years, demand for camellia oil has been stimulated and driven, prompting supermarket brands to take action. The author learned that as early as 2019, Baohua Agricultural Science and Technology, a leading agricultural enterprise in Shaoguan, Guangdong, formed a strategic partnership with the new retail brand Hema. In 2022, they jointly established a Hema Village, successfully creating the first carbon-neutral organic camellia oil production base. It is reported that this Hema Village is located in Daqiao Town, Ruyuan County, Shaoguan City, in northern Guangdong. The area is described as "nine parts stone, one part soil, with land as precious as gold and water as precious as oil," featuring karst terrain and limestone landforms. Camellia trees thrive in this environment, and the two parties began developing the camellia industry, which now produces nearly a thousand tons of camellia oil annually and is a renowned origin. CNR (China National Radio) once reported that this Hema Village in Shaoguan, Guangdong, is a Hema Village growing on rocks. According to media reports, Hema launched organic camellia oil in 2020. Although its price is higher than other edible oils, many consumers are increasingly health-conscious, and sales growth of Hema's organic camellia oil has been continuously rising. Data shows that in 2025, sales of Hema's organic camellia oil series increased by over 40% year-on-year. Interestingly, camellia oil not only has edible health benefits but also many other values worth exploring and deeply mining. The author has learned that the camellia oil Hema Village in Shaoguan, Guangdong, has completed new explorations, developing a new camellia flower personal care product series. Based on camellia oil's richness in oleic acid, vitamin E, and squalene, which are similar in structure to human sebum and have good skin affinity, it is a high-quality skincare oil. This has been practiced for a long time. In Guangdong, many families directly use camellia oil, especially aged camellia oil, as a natural moisturizer and skin conditioner for newborns and infants. The natural, green, and healthy ingredients of camellia oil align well with the needs of many consumers who value beauty, health, and quality of life. Hema naturally saw this consumer demand. It is reported that after local camellia fruits are cold-pressed, part of the oil enters the kitchen as edible oil, while another part is refined and purified as a high-end oil ingredient for skincare production lines. Using Hema's edible Ruyuan organic camellia oil as the base ingredient, Hema has developed products such as body lotion, hand cream, and facial cleanser foam. The camellia flower personal care series will be officially launched on Hema's channels. Additionally, Hema plans to develop lip balm, hair oil, and makeup remover oil in the same series. Clearly, Hema not only aims to excel in private-label products but also to become a discoverer of new value in private-label products. An industry veteran told the author that Hema, in terms of camellia oil products, has not only explored edible value but now extends product use to beauty and skincare product lines, maximizing product value and the value of the camellia oil industrial chain. So, through the case of Hema maximizing the value of camellia oil, let's explore why Hema does this. More importantly, we see the era of supermarket private-label products behind this. How should supermarket brands understand and meet consumer needs and expectations? Hema Can Only Blaze Its Own Trail Why does Hema put in hard and "foolish" efforts in supply chain and private-label products? This was destined from the very beginning of Hema's birth. Ten years ago, China's retail industry was in a period of rapid transformation, with traditional retail supermarkets facing challenges and difficulties. On one hand, traditional supermarket operators were facing pressure to transform, with high store operating pressure, losses, and the beginning of a wave of store closures. Large leading chain supermarket brands had actions but were slow to transform. On the other hand, China's internet industry was experiencing a wave of combining online and offline business models, such as the O2O boom. Alibaba founder Jack Ma first proposed the concept of New Retail at the end of 2016, hoping to use advanced information technology and business concepts to achieve deep integration of online and offline consumption scenarios. A year before Ma proposed the New Retail concept, Hema was established, positioning itself as China's first new retail platform driven by data and technology, aiming to reconstruct the industry's "people, goods, and places" and create an integrated new retail model that combines online and offline. Against the backdrop where traditional retail supermarkets were still dominant, if Hema had gone with the flow, it would not have had its own characteristics. This required Hema not to be a "porter" or "displayer" of goods, but a new definer and value creator of products. To achieve Hema's new retail goals, it had to break away from the shelf thinking of traditional supermarkets, but it also had to respect the underlying business logic of retail. So, from the beginning, Hema emphasized internet labels and the combination of online and offline, allowing consumers to feel a different experience compared to traditional supermarkets when they walk into Hema. To be different, Hema needed to explore business models, store operations, scenario services, and experiences, as well as upstream supply chain practices that consumers cannot see. Therefore, from the perspective of business model development needs, Hema can only blaze its own trail without reference brands. A new retail rising brand must understand consumer needs to win consumers. During Hema's establishment and early rapid development, it coincided with rapid economic growth. Consumers in first- and second-tier cities, especially many consumers, middle-class families, and young people, had demands for quality daily shopping and living, as well as for high-quality, high-value, and high-cost-performance premium products. Today's consumers are becoming smarter, even more sophisticated and picky. Many consumers pay attention to ingredient lists, healthiness, price suitability, shelf life, and have increasingly high requirements for shopping convenience and timeliness. This requires Hema to deeply and continuously participate in the entire supply chain of product retail. Even if consumers cannot see these aspects, they can experience them through products sold in stores, such as bestsellers, internet-famous products, and seasonal items, through purchase, consumption, and use. Hema establishes Hema Villages nationwide, based on an order agriculture model, signing long-term direct procurement agreements with agricultural bases or villages. Hema Villages plant or breed according to Hema's quality standards, specifications, and order requirements, achieving production based on sales and connecting production with sales. Taking the Hema Village in Ruyuan County, Shaoguan, Guangdong as an example, the village adjusts the flavor of camellia oil according to Hema's quality and requirements to meet the needs of consumers nationwide. For the newly developed camellia flower personal care series, Hema conducts product development based on insights into consumer needs and the growing demand for healthy personal care products, even innovating in product packaging design. The aforementioned industry veteran told the author that although Hema is only ten years old, it has already taken the lead in the industry in supply chain, retail experience, and private-label product development. It is already a leading brand in the industry. In terms of brand effect, store scale, and sales, Hema has even surpassed several established large chain supermarket brands. According to the "2024 China Supermarket TOP 100" list released by the China Chain Store & Franchise Association in July this year, Hema ranked among the top three for the first time with annual sales of 75 billion yuan. The first place was Walmart China, and the second was Kanger Investment, which holds the RT-Mart brand. So, from the beginning, whether in the past, present, or future, Hema can only blaze its own trail. Supermarket Private-Label Products Enter the Deep Source Era In recent years, the entire supermarket industry in China has seen a wave of private-label product enthusiasm, with well-known chain supermarket brands intensifying their efforts in private-label products. A recent report by Bain & Company and Worldpanel Consumer Index, "2025 China Shopper Report, Series 2," shows that many retailers are "doing the work of brand owners," accelerating the development of private-label products to provide consumers with high-quality, cost-effective products. Private brands have grown at an average annual rate of 44% over the past two years, and in the first three quarters of 2025, they accounted for 2% of total FMCG sales. For example, the internet-famous top supermarket Pangdonglai's private-label products are extremely popular, and Walmart has upgraded its "Wo Ji Xian" brand. Internet giants further tested and developed supermarket businesses in 2025, with JD.com and Meituan also focusing on discount supermarkets and community supermarket businesses, and developing private-label products. Hema's Hema Fresh stores focus on private-label products, which have become a core competitiveness and advantage. The community budget supermarket brand Chaohe Suan NB has a private-label product ratio as high as 60%. Looking at the history of China's supermarket development, overall, Chinese supermarket brands have gone through three stages in developing private-label products, and now they have entered a fourth stage of development. The first is the introduction stage, where large supermarket brands began to explore and test private-label products, usually covering categories with low brand awareness, such as food and basic daily necessities, with sales share generally below 10%. A notable feature of this stage is OEM (original equipment manufacturing), focusing on cost performance, which is the simple OEM era of private-label products. The second is the growth stage, benefiting from the brand advantages, supply chain advantages, and user channel resources of large well-known chain supermarkets. Retail supermarket brands began to increase the proportion of private-label products to about 25%, still focusing on high quality and low prices. The notable feature of this stage is still mainly OEM. The third is the rapid development stage, where well-known chain supermarket brands began to vigorously develop most, or even all, categories of private-label products, with sales share reaching or exceeding 50%. Brand supermarket private-label products began to become a distinctive feature. Hema is a representative brand in this stage. The notable feature of this stage is standardized participation, where brand owners propose standard systems to suppliers. Now, in the past year or two, more evident in 2025, it has entered the fourth stage of development: the deep source era, fully entering the ecological period of private-label product development. Retailer brands not only need to understand consumer needs but also provide high-quality products that exceed consumer expectations. Through big data, market research, and frontline consumer feedback, they start from the source of the supply chain and origin, develop products, and achieve from origin, raw materials, product development, production, and finally to consumers. Private-label products entering the deep source era raises the requirements and capabilities of retail supermarket brands, even requiring patience, perseverance, bold innovation, and more unknown explorations. In this stage, another highlight of supermarket private-label development is maximizing the value of the supply chain source, which is to develop multiple categories and uses of products from the same raw material. This places higher demands on a supermarket brand's innovation capability. The Hema Village in Ruyuan County, Shaoguan, Guangdong, expanding camellia oil research and development to new personal care product series is not only Hema's latest innovation case but also a representative case of leading brands in the supermarket industry focusing on private-label products, conducting deep underlying innovation and source innovation. Hema Villages are not only in Ruyuan, Shaoguan, Guangdong. For example, Lianqun Village in Jiading District, Shanghai, is one of Hema's organic vegetable planting bases. Previously, this base used a membership model for small-scale customized sales, which was difficult to scale and had weak sustainable development capabilities. Hema's R&D and procurement team, based on the characteristics and shortcomings of organic vegetables, such as short growth cycles for leafy greens and high losses during concentrated market release, tried and succeeded in having suppliers grow leafy greens suitable for salad mixes, such as lettuce, arugula, and purple cabbage. They launched "organic salad greens" first, which is now a bestseller at Hema. Behind these Hema Village cases is Hema's innovation in every link from source development, consumer insight, and finally to consumers, building its own moat. A supermarket exploring and creating maximum value in the industrial chain not only benefits itself but also provides consumers with high-quality products. It can also drive the creation of new value upstream in the industrial chain, allowing suppliers, farmers at origins, and other participants to benefit together. Win-win cooperation can continuously create greater value. The author believes that the era of traditional OEM and simple participation in supermarket private-label products has passed. The era of deep source has arrived. The era that truly tests a supermarket brand's comprehensive soft and hard capabilities in doing private-label products well has arrived.