---
title: "Instant Noodles Market Declines 6%, How Did This New Brand Grow 44.4% Against the Trend?"
description: "Entering 2026, growth in the FMCG industry is increasingly hard to find. In the instant food sector, Q4 2025 instant noodle sales fell over 6% year-on-year, while only four leading companies launched 887 new SKUs annually. Against this backdrop, Huaweifang achieved 44.4% annual growth by focusing on non-fried steamed noodles and implementing scene-based marketing in regional markets."
author: "王军"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2026-03-07"
categories: "Brand Marketing, Management & Methods"
language: "en"
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original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/RpsBFVYU9xO4bSl6wb5dOg"
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citation: "王军. “Instant Noodles Market Declines 6%, How Did This New Brand Grow 44.4% Against the Trend?.” New Distribution, 2026-03-07. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/instant-noodles-market-declines-6-how-did-this-new-brand-grow-44-4-again-1c2f68fc/"
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---

# Instant Noodles Market Declines 6%, How Did This New Brand Grow 44.4% Against the Trend?

> Entering 2026, growth in the FMCG industry is increasingly hard to find. In the instant food sector, Q4 2025 instant noodle sales fell over 6% year-on-year, while only four leading companies launched 887 new SKUs annually. Against this backdrop, Huaweifang achieved 44.4% annual growth by focusing on non-fried steamed noodles and implementing scene-based marketing in regional markets.

**Entering 2026, growth in the FMCG industry is increasingly hard to find. In the instant food sector, according to the "2025 Q4 Instant Food Market Review" report, Q4 2025 instant noodle sales fell over 6% year-on-year, with category share down 1.15 percentage points.**
In contrast, just four leading companies launched 887 new SKUs in the full year. The surge in new products did not improve sell-through efficiency; instead, it slowed turnover and made terminal stores more cautious in stocking decisions.
Facing a zero-sum game, long-term brand development must align with consumption upgrades. Since the first fried instant noodles debuted in 1958, frying technology has long dominated the market. As consumers increasingly demand low-fat, healthy foods, technological upgrades in the instant food industry are imperative.
Against this market backdrop, Huaweifang Food (Jiaozuo) Co., Ltd. was founded in 2015. Leveraging Jiaozuo's high-quality wheat base, a factory area of over 60,000 square meters, and annual output value exceeding 1 billion yuan, Huaweifang has taken as its mission to "promote Chinese specialty cuisine and produce healthy, delicious food," focusing forward-looking on the non-fried steamed noodle segment.
To achieve a breakthrough in healthy instant food, Huaweifang independently developed the first "0-fried" instant noodle leaf production line in China, creatively proposing the concept of "0-fried steamed healthy noodles."
As the "pioneer of China's instant noodle leaf category," Huaweifang's products, including sour soup noodle leaves and malatang, all use the "0-fried, steamed noodle" process. The company has also passed three major industry certifications including ISO9001 and obtained export registration qualifications, aligning with the health-conscious trend.
With such solid product support, Huaweifang achieved independent growth in the Shangshui market of Henan: during the Spring Festival, unloading volume at the top 20 stores in the Shangshui regional market doubled from 3,260 cases in previous years to 8,100 cases. This drove overall brand sales up 44.4% for the year.
Why review this case?
Because in today's market with severe product oversupply, it is rare for a new brand to make a splash in a regional market. While instant food industry Q4 sales fell 6%, Huaweifang's Q4 sales grew 58.2%. Huaweifang's success proves a hard truth: as long as product strength is solid and the marketing model can be implemented, new brands still have the opportunity to reshape the market landscape.
**Aligning with the healthy instant food trend, building market foundation with superior product quality**
For terminal stores to achieve sustained product sales, the product itself must have clear design advantages and quality assurance. Huaweifang's sales increase in the Shangshui market relies mainly on its long-term construction in production processes, raw material selection, and product matrix.
At the time, "0-fried steamed healthy noodles" faced a situation of "0 technology, 0 equipment, 0 standards" in China. Huaweifang, together with equipment manufacturers, conducted three years of technical research, over 300 formula designs and process experiments, achieving a breakthrough in noodle-making technology—0-fried.
Huaweifang's 0-fried process innovatively uses circulating hot air drying technology, achieving 4-minute rehydration for noodle leaves and a soup absorption rate of up to 160%. Based on the characteristics of 0-fried noodle leaves, the company developed a "steam first, slice later" production process, invented a noodle cutter and noodle leaf conveying device suitable for this process, ensuring no manual contact throughout.
In raw material procurement, Huaweifang selects flour mainly from Jiaozuo's high-quality wheat base in Henan, which produces high-precision, high-protein hard wheat. The company uses an intelligent blending system to select flour meeting all indicator requirements.
For seasonings, Huaweifang selects Shanxi aged vinegar and traditional stone-ground sesame oil from Zhumadian, Henan. To ensure standardization, the company uses 35 inspection indicators and 34 technical indicators to specially formulate exclusive vinegar and sesame oil for Huaweifang.
Based on the above production processes and raw materials, Huaweifang has developed product series covering different consumer groups.
  * Sour Soup Noodle Leaf Series: Using non-fried noodle-making process, products include seaweed and dried shrimp flavor, nourishing mushroom soup flavor, tomato and perilla flavor, oil-splashed chili flavor, and golden soup beef flavor. Among them, the classic seaweed and dried shrimp flavor, paired with Shanxi vinegar and enhanced with sesame oil, achieves a fragrant, sour, and refreshing taste.
  * Malatang Series: Using a combination of noodle leaves and vermicelli, available in spicy, sour-spicy, and fragrant-spicy flavors, with rich ingredients and a savory broth.
  * Knife-Cut Noodle Series: Including oil-splashed chili and spicy beef flavors, with a rich broth.
  * Tomato Sauce Noodle Series: Using seasonal tomato juice from Xinjiang, available in tomato and egg, tomato and beef brisket, and slow-simmered tomato flavors, using low-temperature freshness-locking simmering technology.
On July 20, 2021, Huaweifang's sour soup noodle leaves passed expert evaluation by the Chinese Institute of Food Science and Technology. Institute President Meng Suhe stated: "Huaweifang's sour soup noodle leaves have opened up the instant noodle leaf category market, with extremely high innovation value."
In corporate development planning, Huaweifang General Manager Zhou Guoxin said: **"Huaweifang insists on being a disseminator of Chinese culinary culture, promoting Chinese specialty cuisine, producing healthy and delicious food, and adhering to category innovation to drive health upgrades. We will carry bigger dreams, build a world-class enterprise, create a world-renowned brand, and let the world fall in love with Chinese noodles."**
This persistence in product direction provides substantial product support for Huaweifang's promotion in regional markets.
**Implementing scene-based marketing, letting terminal stores see real sales**
With the product foundation in place, the next main task is how to push new products into retail terminals. Against the backdrop of industry-wide pressure and generally slower new product sell-through, the changes in the county-level market of Shangshui stand out.
Recently, during a visit to the Shangshui market, the author interviewed Liu, General Manager of Huaweifang's Southern Henan Region. Reviewing market changes over the years, Liu provided a clear data trajectory: from 288,500 yuan in sales when he took over in 2021 to 1.8351 million yuan in 2025; from an average of less than 1,000 cases per month to nearly 10,000 cases per month.
For a county-level market, such changes are not a one-off surge in a particular year but a structural result accumulated over several consecutive years. But if we rewind to the starting point, the initial challenge in the Shangshui market was not a matter of "selling more or less," but a more basic reality—terminals were afraid to take goods.
"At that time, when distributing to terminals, floor displays of 10 cases almost didn't exist; more often it was unloading two or three cases; some stores were even willing to take only one case, and we had to split half a box to make up the order," Liu shared with the author.
In terminal language, the owners' concerns boil down to four points:
  * First, fear of not selling, tying up capital and shelf space;
  * Second, fear of no after-sales support;
  * Third, fear of unstable quality, damaging their store's reputation;
  * Fourth, fear of no brand pull, relying solely on channel push.
In a stagnant retail environment, terminals fear not earning a little less, but having goods stuck in the warehouse and money tied up in inventory, eventually turning into real losses. Traditional gift-with-purchase policies and verbal sales pitches are hard to persuade rational stores to increase orders. In such cases, what truly determines whether the market can start is not the intensity of policies, but why the owner should trust you.
This trust is not "told" but "seen."
Huaweifang distributor Wang Fei recalled that on the first day of the Spring Festival in 2022, the team went down to township stores early. At that time, a township supermarket dared to unload only 200 cases before the new year, but they sold quickly, clearing 180 cases that day. Instead of stopping for the night, they replenished another 200 cases overnight.
Similar scenes were not isolated during that Spring Festival. Multiple township stores such as Huji Erbang Supermarket, Zhangzhuang Huikeduo, Xiangshan Supermarket, and Chunmei Supermarket had daily sales concentrated in the 120–180 case range. Previously, many of these stores were only in a "two or three cases" state.
For terminal owners, this change has only one meaning: it's not that you tell me it can sell, but that I see it selling myself.
It was from these "on-site verifications" during the Spring Festival that the Shangshui market first saw clear confidence samples. The establishment of terminal stocking confidence was directly reflected in real performance in the Shangshui area: **Wang Fei's team sales jumped from 288,500 yuan in 2021 to 930,600 yuan in 2022, then steadily grew to 1.4652 million and 1.4789 million in 2023 and 2024, and climbed to 1.8351 million yuan in 2025.**
All subsequent actions revolved around this point. The next key question is: how can this ability to "see sell-through" be systematically replicated?
In Shangshui, in March 2025, the Huaweifang team introduced guidance from marketing expert Liu Chunxiong on "scene-based marketing" and "BC integration." In multiple exchanges with Liu Chunxiong, the author repeatedly heard a judgment:
Having worked in marketing for over thirty years, he believes that in the current environment, scene-based marketing is the fastest way to push new products, especially suitable for new products, new brands, new markets, and high-end products (the "three new and one high"). The essence of business is not complicated—it's just someone buying and someone selling. The core value of BC integration is to compress the desire to buy and the willingness to sell into the same scene.
To implement this abstract theory, Liu and the Huaweifang team transformed it into a series of highly effective on-site actions. They no longer clung to the old "hundreds of cases, thousands of displays" hard-push strategy, but instead broke the ice through "high-momentum scenes," with the most typical case occurring at school gates.
Salespeople no longer begged store owners to stock up; instead, they set up tasting stalls directly next to school gate supermarkets. The Huaweifang sales team required no fewer than three tastings per day, with salespeople's cars always equipped with products and hot water thermoses, tasting wherever they went.
Utilizing the product's 4-minute rehydration property, they would brew noodle leaves on the spot, letting the steaming aroma attract children just out of school and parents picking them up.
This approach cleverly bypasses the lengthy process of persuading the owner, letting C-end (consumer) demand drive B-end (store) demand in reverse.
In one instance, even though the supermarket owner was initially extremely resistant to stocking, when parents and children developed a strong desire to buy after tasting, and even contacted the salesperson via WeChat to find the product because they couldn't buy it on the spot, this real "customers chasing to buy" dynamic instantly broke through the owner's psychological defenses.
This strong experience based on student scenes led even stores that originally only sold stationery or fruit to proactively request stocking, not only achieving single-point sell-through but also rapidly increasing monthly sales at some school outlets by 6 to 10 times.
To make this success replicable, the Shangshui team turned this action into a "flash-mob" style routine. Salespeople entered stores not to discuss stocking or policies, but carrying a "tasting bucket," and whenever they saw a crowd, they would immediately conduct a 15-minute tasting at the most visible spot on the counter.
When consumers give positive feedback and purchase on the spot, that moment itself is the most direct basis for the store owner's judgment.
This action doesn't require a large team or add burden to terminals, yet it allows store owners to see regular customers nod in approval and casually buy two cases. The business loop completed within one minute is more persuasive than any fancy sales pitch. What truly sets it apart is not just "speed," but consistency. It's not done only on holidays or concentrated for a week, but happens every day.
When this impromptu tasting occurs frequently at high-momentum terminals in the Shangshui market, it creates a powerful "spillover effect": extending from single-point student scenes to township top stores and community stores, growth no longer relies on salespeople's experience but on these deep-terminal actions.
From piloting this model in May to the concentrated amplification during the Spring Festival, the Shangshui market compressed what would normally take longer to develop into just four months, completely changing the situation where terminals dared not take goods.
**Abandoning blind network expansion, driving distributor growth with real sales data**
After proving the product's sales capability through on-site tastings, the Shangshui market entered a phase of expanding distribution volume. In this phase, the Huaweifang team did not adopt a blanket expansion strategy but implemented measures focusing on top stores and strict sell-through management, while the factory in the rear also enhanced production and warehousing capacity to support.
**Focusing on core stores and natural expansion**
In channel distribution structure, the Shangshui team concentrated early product resources and maintenance efforts on stores with stable customer flow and prime locations. When these key stores achieved stable sales through tasting activities, the team increased the per-order volume for these stores. During the Spring Festival, some top stores' stocking volumes jumped from dozens of cases to 300, 500, or even 1,000 cases.
Meanwhile, retail information in county and township markets circulates quickly; when one store sells well, neighboring stores observe this, creating a spillover effect. Subsequent store expansion no longer relies entirely on repeated communication by salespeople but occurs naturally based on existing sales results.
**Inventory management oriented by actual sales**
In specific channel management, the Huaweifang team requires that distribution volume be determined by actual sell-through speed. Sales personnel focus on tracking the real consumption of products, prioritizing ensuring that fast-selling top stores do not run out of stock.
For slower-selling stores, they control stocking volume to avoid inventory buildup. This management approach ensures normal turnover of capital and goods in the channel, allowing distributors and terminal stores to make objective stocking decisions based on actual sales data.
**Production and intelligent warehousing support**
Front-end market distribution expansion requires stable supply from back-end production. Huaweifang Food (Jiaozuo) Co., Ltd.'s current factory employs nearly 500 workers.
In hardware equipment, the factory uses an automatic flour supply system, where flour is pumped into silos via automatic tankers and automatically conveyed to the mixing bowl according to process requirements. The rolling process uses composite and continuous rolling machines, passing through nine rollers to press the dough sheet from over one centimeter to the required thickness. The cutting process uses a patented double-sided noodle cutting knife. Products then enter automatic weighing, automatic seasoning packet insertion, automatic film wrapping, and boxing stages.
In warehousing management, Huaweifang has launched an intelligent warehouse system, completing processes from finished product palletizing, automatic warehousing, in-warehouse management, to automatic outbound.
The system records production dates to the minute during palletizing and scans time nodes during warehousing. In outbound shipping, the system accurately records the market, customer, and transport vehicle for each product, enabling full traceability of product flow.
In response to earlier capacity constraints, the company has planned to add new production lines and initiated the second phase of the intelligent warehouse project to expand storage capacity. This production and warehousing construction provides foundational support for regional market sales growth.
**Final Thoughts**
Huaweifang's sales growth in the Shangshui market of Henan is the result of coordinated efforts between production and sales. In an environment where the instant noodle industry faces growth pressure, Huaweifang established a brand development path for non-fried steamed noodles through early technical investment, producing instant noodle leaves that meet health trends.
In actual regional market operations, the sales team translated scene-based marketing concepts into concrete tasting actions, using real sales processes to dispel terminal stores' concerns. Subsequently, by focusing on key stores and implementing strict sell-through management, they gradually achieved sales growth in the regional market.
If you also want to find growth breakthroughs in a stagnant market and witness firsthand how Huaweifang used scene-based marketing to break into regional markets, here's your chance!
On March 16-18, 2026, in Chengdu, at the [CFC 11th China FMCG Conference], Liu Xi, Marketing Assistant to the General Manager of Huaweifang Food Company, will be present to share in depth "Huaweifang's Scene-Based Marketing Breakthrough in Regional Markets," revealing the practical methodology behind the brand's 44.4% annual growth.
From school gate tastings to terminal sell-through explosions, from "daring not to stock" to "stocking thousands of cases"—Huaweifang's counter-trend experience will be dissected for you.
This is not just a sharing session, but an excellent opportunity for face-to-face exchange with industry pioneers.
Huaweifang cooperation hotline: 4001898158


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## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: 王军
- Published: 2026-03-07
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/instant-noodles-market-declines-6-how-did-this-new-brand-grow-44-4-again-1c2f68fc/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/RpsBFVYU9xO4bSl6wb5dOg

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