A new fast-food brand, established only four years ago, has entered 124 cities, 150,000 retail outlets, and established partnerships with nearly 200 distributors. Notably, over 90% of these partners were referred by friends within the industry, rather than through traditional recruitment methods. Manxiaobao's reputation in the offline market has thus spread widely. As of the third quarter of 2024, Manxiaobao has maintained growth across all channels for four consecutive years, with offline sales exceeding 500 million yuan in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 30%, and October alone seeing a year-on-year growth of over 70%. In the current market environment, Manxiaobao's performance is rare across the entire industry. What kind of brand is this? Why is the distributor referral rate so high? Where does its double-digit offline growth come from? How does the brand build a channel strategy for long-term growth? With these curiosities, New Distribution exclusively interviewed Manxiaobao's core business team, and this article will deeply interpret the growth methodology of Manxiaobao's offline market operations.
"Stability" First in Offline Layout
Run Sell-Through Before Distribution
Before diving into the analysis, let's review Manxiaobao's brand development history:
2020: Manxiaobao Company was established.
2021: E-commerce revenue exceeded 100 million yuan.
2022: Started offline layout through instant retail O2O, LKA, and NKA channels, covering 10,000 outlets.
2023: Gradually expanded to second- and third-tier cities, cumulatively covering 100,000 outlets.
2024: Entered 124 cities nationwide; by the third quarter, cumulative outlets exceeded 150,000. From the very first day of its founding, Manxiaobao positioned itself not as an "e-commerce brand" but as a "food consumer brand for long-term omnichannel operation." Offline, rather than blindly expanding nationwide distribution on a large scale, Manxiaobao prefers to first create a "sample market with sell-through" and then replicate and iterate. It collects market feedback through instant retail O2O, then tests in a single city; after verifying product-channel fit, it further advances into LKA (such as Shenzhen Tianhong, Chengdu Ito Yokado, Shijiazhuang Beiguo) and NKA (such as Yonghui, RT-Mart, Walmart) to continuously strengthen brand momentum. Manxiaobao's regional market strategy can be summarized in nine words: Validate product, run sell-through, then distribute. Manxiaobao's benchmark market in Shandong Ranking in the "top 5 in benchmark channels for fast food" is a hard indicator for Manxiaobao to measure whether a product can adapt to a new market. Only after confirming that local customers' purchase intention and product fit are high enough does it proceed with orderly distribution. Entering a channel store is just the first step; sell-through conversion is the core key point. Manxiaobao sets "user repurchase rate, PSD, and ranking" as the North Star goals throughout the sales chain. Around these North Star indicators, it has completed a series of key improvement actions with clear direction: First, in-store tasting activities. Manxiaobao's marketing team regularly conducts offline research and found that the tasting conversion rate for Feizhi Rice Noodles is as high as 90%, almost "try and buy." After identifying the key factor for sell-through, Manxiaobao increased investment in tasting activities and optimized the experience, significantly boosting sales at individual points. Taking the Shandong market as an example, Manxiaobao holds over 300 weekend tasting sessions per month; at Jinan university campus promotions, daily PSD exceeds 1,000; and a single event at a chain system can see POS exceed 5,000... Detailed activity plans, complete promotional materials, and impressive sales results give distributors not only the motivation to deepen cooperation but also the willingness to recommend other friends to cooperate. Second, engage with opinion leaders. Where hearts go, traffic flows, and retention follows. Within Manxiaobao, there has always been an important young consumer activity called "Entering Campuses, Pampering Female College Students." Earlier this year, Manxiaobao collaborated with the popular Chinese original IP "Heaven Official's Blessing" (Tian Guan Ci Fu), which is beloved by Generation Z. Besides online exposure of over 1 billion through national hot searches, social media seeding, drama ads, and Douyin challenge promotions, it also invested in 100 offline campus promotion activities for the IP, attracting brand customers and IP fans to check in and interact. The thoughtful collaboration, delicious products, and exquisite merchandise were both critically and commercially successful; the IP-themed offline event achieved daily POS exceeding 9,000 yuan, and the total GMV of the collaboration exceeded 55 million yuan. The lively scene of the Heaven Official's Blessing campus event Third, maximize exposure online, deepen interaction regionally. When Manxiaobao "debuted," it used the "social media marketing trio" of "Xiaohongshu seeding, influencer promotion, and Douyin marketing" to quickly expand the market with the new category "Feizhi Rice Noodles" in the rice noodle track, successfully seizing the top position in category mindshare. Subsequently, it invested in hit dramas such as "Meet Yourself," "Yao-Chinese Folktales," "Till the End of the Moon," and "The Longest Promise," sponsored popular variety shows like "Hello, Young Farmers" and "Liyuan Laifu Zhan - You Have the Say," and deeply collaborated with hot celebrities like "Shi Ge Qin Tian" and "0713," continuously enhancing brand awareness. In a year when many brands have significantly reduced or even stopped brand marketing, Manxiaobao has never ceased investing in efficient brand building, but all efforts are driven by launching new products and achieving bestseller results. In August this year, Manxiaobao launched a new hit product, "Guizhou Sour Soup Rice Noodles," which exceeded 10 million yuan in omnichannel GMV within 15 days of launch. Seeing the potential of the new product, Manxiaobao decided to press the advantage. In September, it collaborated with CCTV's flagship IP "A Bite of China" to shoot a themed origin short film, which garnered over 10 million views; in early October, it partnered with top Douyin food blogger "MR-白冰" to shoot a review video and launched the "Manxiaobao Annual Hit Product Day" themed marketing campaign. During the campaign, Baibing's video views exceeded 43 million, likes surpassed one million, the new product's total exposure on Douyin exceeded 300 million, and campaign GMV exceeded 11 million yuan. Scene Insight Understands Demand Step by Step to Create Hits "Product is the best marketing." For the development of new hits, Manxiaobao has also accumulated a complete methodology: From product concept—product R&D—silent sales period—market validation period—optimization iteration period—promotion and customer acquisition period—user repurchase period, each stage has clear methods and leading indicators to guide work. In Manxiaobao's hit product development methodology, there is a saying: "If the offline wind is strong, there will be no online hits." Observing the popularity of Yunnan-Guizhou specialty restaurants offline and the gap in instant food online, in July this year, Manxiaobao launched a new flavor product, "Yunnan Sauerkraut Hot Pot Rice Noodles." In the first week, offline channel GMV exceeded 3 million yuan, and many places sold out directly. This innovative regional flavor product, originally intended as a small trial, performed far beyond the team's expectations. Currently, monthly sales have exceeded 10 million yuan, firmly locking it in as the next single product with annual sales exceeding 100 million yuan. The instant version of "Yunnan Sauerkraut Hot Pot Rice Noodles" followed, with orders exceeding 10,000 boxes on the first day of sale. Manxiaobao's distribution manager had to urgently issue a sold-out notice that evening, asking distributors who were scrambling to place orders to patiently wait for the next batch. Manxiaobao's new hit product launched in July 2024 - Yunnan Sauerkraut Hot Pot Rice Noodles In August this year, Manxiaobao launched its second regional flavor new product, "Guizhou Sour Soup Rice Noodles." Within 15 days of launch, omnichannel sales exceeded 10 million yuan, with particularly impressive performance in offline channels—the first month's target channel entry rate was 100%; in O2O channels represented by Dingdong, Hema, and Xiaoxiang Supermarket, it reached the top of the charts upon launch; and it simultaneously entered CVS channels represented by FamilyMart, Lawson, and 7-Eleven, as well as KA channels such as RT-Mart, Ole, and Qixian. With a multi-pronged approach and concerted efforts, the second new product's first-month offline shipment value exceeded 10 million yuan, becoming another seed player for a billion-level single product. In addition to the billion-level single product "Feizhi Rice Noodles," which has been the national sales champion for three consecutive years with a market share as high as 81%, Manxiaobao has launched two new products expected to exceed 100 million yuan in annual sales within just half a year: "Guizhou Sour Soup Rice Noodles" and "Yunnan Sauerkraut Hot Pot Rice Noodles." This successfully establishes a new hit product matrix of "one super + multiple leaders," closely capturing the high-frequency demand of urban young generations for "wanting to simply make something delicious" in solo dining scenarios. Manxiaobao's star product matrix for offline channels
Careful Selection of Partners
Work Together for Win-Win
Manxiaobao's strictness and precision in selecting partners is often "legendary" in the industry. A distributor who cooperated with Manxiaobao once shared that two years ago, when Manxiaobao was still a new brand offline, as a local leading distributor, he thought it would be easy to get the agency, but unexpectedly, he had to go through a strict "written test" and "interview" before finally obtaining the distribution rights. In response, Manxiaobao's sales head said: "To be honest, the so-called 'written test' and 'interview' were absolutely not to show off or raise the cooperation threshold, but to be responsible for future partners. At that time, there were too many partners approaching us, so we had to use a questionnaire to uniformly collect basic information from interested partners. Essentially, Manxiaobao hopes that both parties can treat cooperation cautiously, join hands with like-minded partners, jointly formulate market plans, and efficiently complete channel building plans. Only by working together and empowering each other can we go further. " To date, Manxiaobao has over 15 distributors with annual performance exceeding 10 million yuan. In addition to the fully entered first-tier and new first-tier markets, in more down-market county-level markets, Manxiaobao has also gained favor from more and more distributors. When inspecting a county market in Shandong, Manxiaobao's distribution head, with the genuine consideration that "the brand's awareness in this county may not be high enough yet, and the timing for market development may not be ripe," "persuaded" the proactively contacted customer to withdraw. Instead, the local distributor firmly said: "We've been looking for over a year and waiting for over a year. We're ready; you can trust us!" They even sent a photo of their spirited distribution team to the regional head, confidently stating that she and her team would definitely do well. Facts proved that by handing over the good products validated in first-tier cities to the right partners, Manxiaobao also developed rapidly in county markets. Since starting cooperation in June 2024, within half a year, the partner's monthly average performance has exceeded 150,000 yuan, and in November, sales reached 200,000 yuan, already leading far ahead in the instant food category they represent. This MVP case not only gave confidence to distributors in other regions but also made Manxiaobao more determined that it can achieve great things in county markets. For the future offline market strategy, Manxiaobao's strategic direction is clear and explicit:
1. With customers as the origin, do a good job of sustained and effective product innovation 2. With channels as the medium, expand the scale of effective outlets 3. With operations as the responsibility, refine key actions to boost sell-through 4. With marketing as the engine, deeply cultivate the preferred mindshare of sub-categories 5. With profit as the link, build long-term win-win business with core partners Summary In just four years since its establishment, Manxiaobao has successfully completed the key leap from 0 to 1 and from 1 to 10 in annual sales. The next milestone is to achieve the advancement from 10 to 20. If you are interested in Manxiaobao, please scan the QR code below to learn more about the brand strategy and market layout, and join Manxiaobao to open a new journey in 2025!