Source | Hourly Consumption

In this era filled with terms like "consumption upgrade," "health consciousness," "innovation iteration," and "anti-involution," major consumer brands are pulling out all the stops. However, Laoganma, the dominant player in Chinese sauces, responds to market volatility with remarkable composure. According to the latest "2025 Top 100 Guizhou Enterprises" list released by the Guizhou Enterprise Confederation and Guizhou Entrepreneurs Association, Laoganma ranked 57th with revenue of 5.39146 billion yuan.

Image source: Laoganma official website (screenshot)

Although this figure represents a slight year-on-year decline, Laoganma's performance in recent years has been relatively strong within the condiment market. At the very least, Laoganma has maintained revenue above 5.2 billion yuan for three consecutive years, and it is close to its historical peak of 5.403 billion yuan in 2020.

For consumer goods, the key factors are product, channel, and brand. In these three areas, it is worth taking Laoganma as a model for calm reflection. Perhaps, in times of uncertainty, retreating to extreme product focus is the most valuable approach.

A Solid "Foundation"

In fact, Laoganma's product range is not extensive. According to its official website, its products include oil-based chili sauce series, fermented black bean series, spicy vegetable series, fermented bean curd series, tomato chili sauce series, chopped chili series, hot pot base series, and catering bulk packaging series.

Of course, the oil-based chili sauce series remains Laoganma's largest product line and revenue source. On the official website, Laoganma has only 29 SKUs in total, with 15 SKUs in the oil-based chili sauce series, while other series mostly have only 2 or 3 SKUs. The catering bulk packaging products were only introduced in the past two years.

It is no exaggeration to say that among food companies with revenue exceeding 5 billion yuan, Laoganma may be the only one with fewer than 30 SKUs.

Especially in the past year or two, with the rapid rise of various recipe-based condiments, Laoganma has not quickly followed suit. Regardless of external criticism about its lack of innovation, it continues to focus on its various oil-based chili products.

Data from offline retail monitoring agency MaxWin shows that in the third quarter of 2024 and the third quarter of 2025 alone, the number of new SKUs in the Chinese-style condiment sauce category reached 508 and 327, respectively.

However, these new and old SKUs combined have not "defeated" Laoganma. According to MaxWin data, Laoganma has maintained a market share of around 55% in the chili sauce category, while the second-place brand holds only a single-digit market share.

"Non-existent" Channel Diversification

Beyond product innovation, channel transformation is also a major reason for performance fluctuations among companies. From traditional e-commerce to community group buying, from interest-based e-commerce to instant retail, companies are seeking new growth points.

However, Laoganma remains an "outlier."

While others actively expand e-commerce, Laoganma chose to "withdraw from the internet." Even after returning, Laoganma appears extremely "laid-back": its official Weibo and WeChat accounts have been inactive since March 2022, its Douyin flagship store's latest short video was posted in February this year, and there have been no live streaming sessions (no records in the past year).

In contrast, many similar companies are opting for influencer带货 and online advertising to boost their online revenue, which naturally increases marketing expenses.

Of course, this does not mean Laoganma does not sell online. Consumers can still purchase Laoganma products from flagship stores or distributor shops on major e-commerce platforms. However, unlike other brands that invest heavily in advertising, Laoganma relies mainly on organic traffic, driven by consumer loyalty to the product.

Currently, Laoganma's advantageous channels remain focused on traditional trade. Moreover, while everyone is pursuing channel下沉, Laoganma still adheres to the "large distributor system," with only a few distributors per province, so its first-tier distributors are typically large in scale.

Although Laoganma offers distributors relatively thin profit margins, secondary distributors are still willing to carry Laoganma due to stable shipment volumes and good sell-through rates. This is a key reason why Laoganma's channel penetration remains high, something other brands find difficult to replicate.

Brand Moat Built on Products

At the brand level, as Laoganma's founder ages, they have rarely appeared in public, and the company as a whole has few public appearances.

Compared to other companies that frequently launch new products, hold press conferences, hire spokespersons, and invest in advertising, Laoganma's brand moat is truly built one bottle of chili sauce at a time, a result of consumers voting with their wallets. This is far stronger than a moat created by extra spending.

"Products better than Laoganma are not as cheap, and products cheaper are not as tasty, and none have Laoganma's fame." In the top 5 SKUs by market share in the Chinese-style condiment sauce category for Q3 2025, as released by MaxWin, Laoganma firmly holds the top three positions. Among them, the 280g flavored fermented black bean oil chili sauce, 280g flavored chicken oil chili sauce, and 275g oil chili sauce hold market shares of 8.25%, 4.88%, and 3.13%, respectively.

It is worth noting that the average price of these three Laoganma products is around 10-12 yuan. In comparison, similar chili sauce products on the market with comparable content and specifications, and with some brand recognition, are priced higher than Laoganma. Moreover, this price difference exists even after Laoganma raised prices in 2022.

Thus, to this day, high cost-performance remains a key weapon for Laoganma.

Postscript

It is not wrong for companies to seek growth, but what categories in the market are consistently growing? Especially as the demographic dividend gradually weakens, pressure persists for most distributors.

For companies, what is innovation? Perhaps among Laoganma's peers, those that continuously innovate are actually falling further behind Laoganma in revenue and net profit.

In this era of micro-innovation and pseudo-innovation, rather than exploring new products, channels, and opportunities everywhere, it is better to maximize your core competency. From this perspective, Laoganma, which is not listed and does not seek financing, outperforms all its peers.

[Moving Forward to C-end] The 11th China FMCG Conference Date: March 16-18, 2026 Location: Chengdu, China