---
title: "Internet Giants Battle in Fresh Food New Retail"
description: "2019 was a year overshadowed by gloom in fresh food new retail, with negative news such as store closures, warehouse shutdowns, layoffs, failed financing, and service suspensions. In 2020, the tide turned, and fresh food new retail became highly sought after again, with major platforms experiencing rapid growth and completing a new round of market expansion. Companies like Tongcheng Life, Xingsheng Youxuan, Miss Fresh, Shihuituan, and Yipin Fresh successively obtained financing."
author: "卓文君"
publisher: "New Distribution"
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published: "2020-09-18"
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# Internet Giants Battle in Fresh Food New Retail

> 2019 was a year overshadowed by gloom in fresh food new retail, with negative news such as store closures, warehouse shutdowns, layoffs, failed financing, and service suspensions. In 2020, the tide turned, and fresh food new retail became highly sought after again, with major platforms experiencing rapid growth and completing a new round of market expansion. Companies like Tongcheng Life, Xingsheng Youxuan, Miss Fresh, Shihuituan, and Yipin Fresh successively obtained financing.

2019 was a year overshadowed by gloom in fresh food new retail: **negative news such as store closures, warehouse shutdowns, layoffs, failed financing, and service suspensions came one after another.** Besides leading fresh food retail platforms like Miaoshenghuo, Anxianda, Jijixian, and Wochu, there were also closures of stores in some cities for Meituan's Xiaoxiang Fresh and Alibaba's Hema Fresh...
In 2020, the tide turned, and it became another year of high popularity for fresh food new retail: while major platforms achieved rapid growth, they also completed a new round of market expansion. Many fresh food retail enterprises, including Tongcheng Life, Xingsheng Youxuan, Miss Fresh, Shihuituan, and Yipin Fresh, successively obtained financing.
One cold, one hot, the early rush of small players gradually exited. The road ahead is long, and now the giants have taken the stage. Alibaba, JD.com, Meituan, Suning, Gome, and Tencent have all entered fresh food new retail. Who will laugh last?
**-01- The Initiator: Alibaba**
**Alibaba, which first proposed the concept of "New Retail," is the initiator of this fresh food new retail battle.** In 2016, it launched Hema Fresh, which completely reconstructed offline retail formats, heavily betting on fresh food new retail. Over four years since its launch, it has been rapidly experimenting with new formats. It wasn't until the beginning of this year that Hema Mini announced overall profitability, finally proving the business model.
After Hema achieved phased results, Alibaba's Retail Link division began preparing to establish a community group buying department, upgrading its Cainiao Post stations into digital community life service stations and piloting community group buying.
Relying on the dense network of Cainiao Post stations and integrating offline supermarkets like RT-Mart and Auchan as supply chain, Alibaba officially entered the community group buying segment of fresh food new retail. It is reported that Cainiao Post's online group buying products cover fresh vegetables, fruits, seafood, frozen products, instant food, meat, and general merchandise.
In addition to the flagship Hema Fresh and the newly entered community fresh food, Alibaba's fresh food new retail portfolio **also includes multiple brands such as Tmall Fresh Supermarket, Taoxianda, Miaoxiansheng, Taoxiangtian, Yiguo Fresh, and Shihuituan, involving various forms including self-owned, holding, and equity participation.** Among them: Tmall Fresh Supermarket is positioned as the daily fresh food ingredient market for consumers; Taoxianda collaborates with Hema Fresh to focus on fresh food delivery to home; Miaoxiansheng targets the mid-to-high-end market, focusing on imported fresh food hits; Taoxiangtian is a direct supply of high-quality fresh agricultural products from domestic origins.
Brand | Positioning | Status and Development
Hema Fresh | Supermarket + Restaurant + Wet Market | Alibaba's No. 1 project in fresh food new retail; closed Hema Xiaozhan, abandoned the front-warehouse model; currently focuses on mini format and explores new formats
Tmall Supermarket Fresh Channel | Local online fresh supermarket | Operation rights transferred from Yiguo to Hema; Tmall Fresh will be integrated later
Taoxianda | Light Hema business model | Transforms traditional supermarkets; creates online fresh orders with one-hour delivery
Miaoxiansheng | Mid-to-high-end fresh market | Alibaba's fresh food channel focus shifted from online to offline; the imported fresh food-focused Miaoxiansheng later deviated somewhat
Taoxiangtian | F2C model, direct supply from domestic origins | Rural Taobao project; with Alibaba's digital agriculture upgrade, Taoxiangtian's development has been slow
Table: Retail Circle
**Among Alibaba's numerous fresh food new retail layouts, the main focus is on "Tmall Supermarket + Hema + Taoxianda" to attack the fresh food new retail battlefield. But looking at the current fresh food market, it can be said that Alibaba has the widest layout in fresh food new retail.**
**-02- The Benchmarkers: JD.com and Meituan**
**After Alibaba's layout, JD.com launched 7Fresh in 2018, benchmarking against Hema Fresh.** As JD.com's first offline fresh supermarket, 7Fresh focuses on online-offline scene integration and a "supermarket + restaurant" composite retail format. However, due to internal changes and management turnover at JD.com, 7Fresh's development has been slow compared to the fast-paced Hema Fresh.
Until the end of 2019, 7Fresh began experimenting with new formats, positioning itself as a fresh food community, launching Qixian Life, which goes down to lower-tier markets, and Qifan'er, which innovates a "bar + restaurant + grocery + social" model. Recently, JD.com launched a new community fresh food format, "Jingxuan Haoguo," to further increase its presence in fresh food new retail.
In addition to JD.com's 7Fresh, **Meituan's initial entry into fresh food new retail, "Xiaoxiang Fresh," also benchmarked against Hema Fresh.**
In 2018, Meituan's Xiaoxiang Fresh opened three stores simultaneously in Changzhou. Later, due to personnel changes, Xiaoxiang Fresh began to shrink its front, closing stores in lower-tier markets. Later, Xiaoxiang incubated Meituan Maicai, and its competitor changed from "Hema" to "Miss Fresh." But from the perspective of fresh food new retail layout, Meituan is currently the most capable of competing with Alibaba.
Although Alibaba's fresh food new retail layout is extensive, Meituan's fresh food retail matrix is also taking shape, with three projects running in parallel on the fresh food track: Meituan Flash Purchase, Meituan Maicai, and Meituan Youxuan.
Brand | Positioning | Development Direction
Meituan Flash Purchase | Instant delivery platform | Incubated Caidaquan, adopting a market agency operation model, focusing on fresh food retail in quasi-first-tier or second- and third-tier cities like Chengdu and Nanjing
Meituan Maicai (incubated by Xiaoxiang Fresh) | Self-operated + front-warehouse model fresh e-commerce | Focuses on first-tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen
Meituan Youxuan | Community group buying | Launched the "Thousand Cities Plan" to penetrate the lower-tier market for fresh food retail
Table: Retail Circle
From Meituan's fresh food new retail layout, from stores to platforms, from fresh food projects to the entire fresh food track, compared to Alibaba's overlapping fresh food retail sectors, Meituan can be considered a qualified competitor.
**-03- The Latecomers: Suning and Gome**
Besides Alibaba, JD.com, and Meituan, **traditional retail enterprises like Suning and Gome have not missed the fresh food new retail cake.**
**In 2019, Suning, relying on Suning Xiaodian, significantly expanded its fresh food categories, opened Suning Caichang business, and provided online fresh food purchase services. Currently, Suning Caichang has covered key cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Nanjing, with over 350 stores.** Previously, Suning's main force in the fresh food field was Su Xiansheng Premium Supermarket, which operated similarly to Hema Fresh but did not make a big splash.
It is worth noting that **Suning Carrefour has increased its layout in fresh food new retail.** Last year, Carrefour launched Le Marché, its first new-concept fashion store in South China, focusing on smart retail, with categories mainly fresh food, dining, imported, and organic products.
In January, Carrefour cooperated with community fresh food company Yipin Fresh in a joint operation model, "outsourcing" the fresh food area of its hypermarkets; in April, Suning Carrefour cooperated with 9 well-known domestic enterprises including Yiguo, Haitianxia, Baiji, Zhanhui, Hongjiu, Xiangjia, Hengdu, Zhongrun, and Heyu to improve fresh food supply chain efficiency and increase fresh food layout;
In September, Carrefour CEO Tian Rui revealed in an interview that it had formulated a "1+2+1" format plan, namely community life centers, standard supermarkets, selected stores, and fresh food community stores, with fresh food community stores being a new format developed by Carrefour.
Brand | Positioning | Development
Suning Caichang | Fresh food processing center + front warehouse + instant delivery | Laid out in Nanjing, Beijing, and Shanghai, expanding to over 300 stores thanks to the expansion speed and location advantages of Suning Xiaodian
Su Xiansheng | New retail fresh supermarket | Store performance mediocre, on the verge of closure
Carrefour Selected | "Su Xiansheng" + "Hypermarket" hybrid premium supermarket; supermarket + e-commerce + dining | Opened its first store in Chongqing in April
/ | Community fresh food store | May be transformed from some Dia Tian Tian stores
Table: Retail Circle
**Gome, which started even later than Suning, only officially entered the fresh food new retail field in June this year.** It opened its first community fresh supermarket, Mei+ Fresh Life Supermarket, in Tongzhou, Beijing. Whether the latecomers Suning and Gome can win in the fresh food new retail battlefield remains unknown.
**-04- The Enabler: Tencent**
**Tencent, which has a love-hate relationship with Alibaba, is also lurking in the fresh food new retail field. Its layout scope is comparable to Alibaba's, but unlike Alibaba, Tencent does not participate directly, mainly cooperating with JD.com, Meituan, and Yonghui through equity participation and holding, empowering fresh food new retail with its traffic, technology, and capital advantages.**
In addition, Tencent has invested in Miss Fresh four times, and has made substantial investments in promising fresh food retail brands such as Yipin Fresh, Xingsheng Youxuan, Qiandama, and Shixianghui.
Brand | Time | Participation Method
Miss Fresh | 2017-2020 | Continuous equity investment
Yipin Fresh | 2019-2020 | Direct investment and equity participation; also involved in digitalization of Yipin Fresh stores, strategic cooperation
Super Species, Yonghui Maicai, Yonghui Life | 2017 | Investment in Yonghui
Xingsheng Youxuan | 2019 | Direct investment and equity participation
Shixianghui | 2019 | Direct investment and equity participation
Better Life, Freshism | 2018 | Investment in Better Life
Xiaoxiang Fresh, Meituan Maicai, Meituan Flash Purchase, Meituan Youxuan | 2015 | Investment in Meituan
Qiandama | 2020 | Direct investment and equity participation
7FRESH | 2014 | Investment in JD.com
Duoduo Maicai | 2016 | Investment in Pinduoduo
Neighborhood Fresh of Zhongbai Group | / | Tencent increased stake in Yonghui; Yonghui increased stake in Zhongbai; Tencent indirectly holds Zhongbai
Table: Retail Circle
Through capital participation and technology empowerment, Tencent plays the role of an enabler in the fresh food new retail market. Entering the high-frequency, essential consumption scenario of fresh food new retail is not only about seizing payment terminals with Alibaba but also about competing for traffic and industry leadership.
**Conclusion:**
Alibaba, JD.com, Meituan, Suning, Gome, and Tencent have all laid out their fresh food tracks. Among the internet giants competing, Alibaba has the time advantage; JD.com seems to have gotten an early start, but its strong self-operated logistics and Dada-JD Daojia instant retail delivery capabilities still give it an absolute advantage in instant delivery, which fresh food new retail relies on;
Meituan is cautiously exploring the fresh food new retail track with clear thinking, betting big on fresh food in 2020; Suning and Gome started later but can still catch up; Tencent is like the mantis stalking the cicada, laying out behind the scenes; in this fierce battle of fresh food new retail, there are strong players now, but it's not over yet. Who knows who will live or die?
Source: Retail Circle (ID: retailsphere) Author: Zhuo Wenjun
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