---
title: "Practice | Relying on Self-developed Digital Platform, Frozen Food 'Newbie' Achieves Annual Sales of 200 Million in 2 Years"
description: "The 'Internet+' is a current hot topic, with digitalization and informatization sweeping across industries. How can the frozen food distribution business collide with the Internet? Today, we look at a case—Xiaocan Frozen Food Network. In just two years, without any local market resources, the platform has reached 3000+ SKUs, served 8000 restaurants, and achieved annual sales of 200 million yuan. The founder, Zheng Jiale, transitioned from a programmer to the frozen food industry with no prior experience, starting from scratch. How did he achieve such impressive results?"
author: "牛月新"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2022-03-24"
language: "en"
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---

# Practice | Relying on Self-developed Digital Platform, Frozen Food 'Newbie' Achieves Annual Sales of 200 Million in 2 Years

> The 'Internet+' is a current hot topic, with digitalization and informatization sweeping across industries. How can the frozen food distribution business collide with the Internet? Today, we look at a case—Xiaocan Frozen Food Network. In just two years, without any local market resources, the platform has reached 3000+ SKUs, served 8000 restaurants, and achieved annual sales of 200 million yuan. The founder, Zheng Jiale, transitioned from a programmer to the frozen food industry with no prior experience, starting from scratch. How did he achieve such impressive results?

The 'Internet+' is a current hot topic, with digitalization and informatization sweeping across all industries. How can the frozen food distribution business collide with the Internet?
Today, let's look at a case—Xiaocan Frozen Food Network. In just two years, without any local market resources, the platform has reached 3000+ SKUs, served 8000 restaurants, and achieved annual sales of 200 million yuan.
Zheng Jiale, the founder of Xiaocan, transitioned from a programmer to the frozen food industry with no prior industry experience, starting from scratch. How did he achieve such impressive results?
**From Programmer to Frozen Food Industry**
Zheng Jiale worked at Tencent for ten years, making him a true 'programmer'. So why did he switch to frozen food?
****△Image source: Provided by interviewee
When asked about this, Zheng Jiale said: 'After Xiaocan took off, many people asked me the same question. There are mainly two reasons. First, in 2018, the Internet entered the second half, and Tencent's 20th anniversary proposed to root in consumer Internet and embrace the industrial Internet.'
'Second, most of my family members are in the frozen food business. Under their influence, I have some understanding of this field. The frozen food industry is extremely fragmented from upstream to downstream, with multiple transfers from manufacturers to merchants, adding many costs. So I felt there could be new possibilities in the frozen food industry.'
In August 2019, Zheng Jiale, with strong execution, left Tencent. He first researched the operating models of Meicai and Kuaituo, tested the waters in Yunnan, and then decided to develop the Guangzhou market. He rented a cold storage of over 1,000 square meters in Guangzhou and plunged into the frozen food industry. On June 6, 2020, Xiaocan Frozen Food Network was established, focusing on frozen food distribution, serving street-side small restaurants.
Before founding Xiaocan, Zheng Jiale and his team made preparatory moves, developing a digital system integrating procurement, sales, finance, and distribution in a short time. This system, combined with WeChat mini-programs, enabled Xiaocan to quickly respond to customer needs, offering over 1,500 SKUs in the first month.
Xiaocan quickly expanded its market and gained many customers. Zheng Jiale summarized three main points:
**First, Xiaocan's product prices are open and transparent. In the market, customer purchase prices often depend on order volume and relationships with sales staff, but Xiaocan sets unified prices in its mall, open and transparent.**
**Second, the variety is comprehensive, allowing one-stop shopping. Third, costs are lower because suppliers reach end customers directly through Xiaocan, reducing intermediate transfers and saving costs, making product prices lower.**
Xiaocan's growing customer base also boosts suppliers' sales, creating a win-win situation. Zheng Jiale said that suppliers see an increase of at least 1-2 million yuan in sales each month.
Currently, Xiaocan focuses on the Guangzhou and Foshan markets, serving over 8,000 restaurants, processing over 1,000 orders daily, with more than 40 logistics vehicles delivering across the city. It is understood that Xiaocan is now ready to expand to other city markets.
******Key to Xiaocan's Success: Building a Digital System**
The comprehensive digital system developed by Zheng Jiale and his team—Xiaocan Assistant—is the foundation for all job workflows in the company.
Xiaocan does not have sales representatives; instead, they use ground promotion teams to expand the market. Compared to traditional sales reps, ground promotion work is simpler and clearer. They only introduce the Xiaocan mall (developed on WeChat mini-programs) to street merchants, add enterprise WeChat contacts, explain how to place orders on the mall, and conduct follow-up visits. The rest—ordering, payment, delivery, and handover—can be handled online through the system.
For inventory issues that trouble traditional distributors, Zheng Jiale's team has another trick.
Zheng Jiale explained: 'In the frozen food industry, product storage is not standardized, and there are no accurate names. For example, meatballs have many manufacturers, each with different brands, all stored in cold storage, making it difficult to know actual inventory and product varieties.'
'To solve this, when goods are put into storage, we use the system to identify and label each box, making storage systematic and standardized. Pickers can quickly locate items using the warehouse picking system's mini-program, enabling fast picking and shipping.'
The systematization and standardization of the entire process also support Xiaocan's small-lot delivery. Zheng Jiale explained: 'Many distributors require minimum order quantities or only sell by the case, but smaller stores don't need such large volumes. We can break cases and deliver, even if a customer only needs one pack of meatballs.'
The warehouse picking system and delivery system, combined with customers placing orders independently via mini-programs, form a virtuous cycle, making Xiaocan's overall turnover speed 2-3 times faster than traditional distributors. In just two years, Xiaocan's annual sales went from zero to 200 million yuan.
******Digitalization: A Necessary Means for Distributors' Transformation and Upgrading**
Nowadays, traditional frozen food distributors face increasingly obvious development pain points, such as rising storage costs, difficult inventory management, and slow capital turnover. The distribution hierarchy is also shrinking, and market competition is intensifying.
The rise of various B2B platforms like Meicai, Kuaituo, and Xindongwang is dividing the terminal market for catering food supply. Therefore, from both operational and management perspectives, digitalization and informatization are inevitable trends for traditional frozen food distributors to upgrade and transform.
Zheng Jiale said: **'Xiaocan's biggest advantage is the digital system built in a short time. First, it can expand infinitely with no upper limit on the number of stores served; second, it can carry a large number of SKUs. Traditional distributors have limited SKU capacity, but Xiaocan has unlimited possibilities. Currently, Xiaocan has 3000+ SKUs.'**
Source: Frozen Food (ID: ldzk001) Author: Niu Yuexin
**Are you 'watching' me?**


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