---
title: "Rivalry Heats Up in the Braised Snack Market: With Tencent and Challenger Capital Entering, How Can Brands Win in the 100-Billion-Yuan Sector?"
description: "In 2020, the leisure braised snack food market exceeded 100 billion yuan in size. According to Frost & Sullivan, from 2015 to 2020, the compound annual growth rate of leisure braised products reached 24.1%, making it the fastest-growing category in the snack food sector. With a history of over 2,000 years, braised food is often called by netizens as 'the taste that best represents China' for its lingering flavor that appeals across generations and regions. Due to the special preparation methods, Chinese consumers previously could only enjoy fresh braised food at home or in stores."
author: "FBIF"
publisher: "New Distribution"
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published: "2021-04-30"
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# Rivalry Heats Up in the Braised Snack Market: With Tencent and Challenger Capital Entering, How Can Brands Win in the 100-Billion-Yuan Sector?

> In 2020, the leisure braised snack food market exceeded 100 billion yuan in size. According to Frost & Sullivan, from 2015 to 2020, the compound annual growth rate of leisure braised products reached 24.1%, making it the fastest-growing category in the snack food sector. With a history of over 2,000 years, braised food is often called by netizens as 'the taste that best represents China' for its lingering flavor that appeals across generations and regions. Due to the special preparation methods, Chinese consumers previously could only enjoy fresh braised food at home or in stores.

In 2020, the leisure braised snack food market exceeded 100 billion yuan in size.
According to Frost & Sullivan, from 2015 to 2020, the compound annual growth rate of leisure braised products reached 24.1%, making it the fastest-growing category in the snack food sector.
With a history of over 2,000 years, braised food is often called by netizens as 'the taste that best represents China' for its lingering flavor that appeals across generations and regions.
Due to the special preparation methods, Chinese consumers previously could only enjoy fresh braised food at home or in stores.
Advances in food processing have expanded the boundaries of what we can eat. With exquisite and compact packaging, consumers can enjoy delicious braised snacks anytime, anywhere, without being tied to a specific setting. Food lovers can simply open the package and enjoy.
Braised food image source: Food TV
E-commerce development has further fueled the popularity of braised snacks. According to CBNData, sales of braised products on Tmall in 2020 increased significantly compared to 2019, with an average growth rate of 40%.
While the three giants of braised food are still locked in fierce competition for the top spot, some emerging brands have quietly gained momentum, joining the 'battlefield' with innovative online strategies in hopes of overtaking on the curve.
This delicious contest has also attracted capital investments, making the leisure braised market even hotter: Tencent invested in Shengxiangting, Tiantu Capital invested in Lurenjia, Eagle Capital and Challenger Capital invested in Wangxiaolu, and Kunchi Capital invested in Taurus's Secret... The 'braised food' arena is experiencing its golden moment.
With many players vying for dominance, how can braised food brands avoid homogenization? With traditional big brands dominating, how can new brands 'overtake on the curve'? This article will explore how brands can better focus on consumers and correctly 'open the braise' in the braised food arena.
**-01-**
# **Fastest-growing in snack foods: What is the prospect of the 100-billion-yuan braised market?**
In recent years, the leisure snack industry has grown rapidly. In terms of industry output value, China's leisure snack industry output grew from 193.1 billion yuan in 2004 to 1,992.5 billion yuan in 2019, with a compound annual growth rate of 16.84%.
According to the 'Snack Industry Development Report under Consumption Upgrade' released by the Ministry of Commerce in 2020, the total annual output value of China's snack industry has reached 2,215.64 billion yuan.
2013-2025 China leisure braised products market size and forecast. Data source: Frost & Sullivan, China National Food Industry Association, Guotai Junan Securities Research. Image source: 2021 Braised Products Industry Consumption Trend Report. Consumption scale of different types of braised products on Tmall and consumption scale trends of snack sub-categories. Image source: 2021 Braised Products Industry Consumption Trend Report.
With the development of cold chain logistics and the improvement of people's living standards, braised products have gradually expanded from table consumption to leisure occasions.
According to Frost & Sullivan data, the market size of China's leisure braised products will reach 123.5 billion yuan in 2020, with a compound annual growth rate of 24.1% from 2015 to 2020, making it the fastest-growing category in snack foods.
It is expected to continue to grow at an annual rate of 13% in the next five years, with the market size exceeding 220 billion yuan by 2025. Among them, leisure braised snacks account for 40%, and 60% are side-dish braised products.
Changes in supply and demand jointly drive the rapid growth of the braised food industry. Image source: 2021 Braised Products Industry Consumption Trend Report.
The growth rate of braised food is unmatched in the entire leisure snack field. It will continue to maintain a growth trend in the next five years.
**-02-**
# **Braised brands dominate the charts: Why does everyone love 'braised'?**
Braised food occupies half of the top 10 in the '2020 China Specialty Snack Ranking', with the three giants Zhou Hei Ya, Juewei Duck Neck, and Huang Shang Huang ranking 1st, 3rd, and 4th respectively, and Xianglong Claw and Liaoji Bangbang Chicken ranking 5th and 10th.
2020 China Specialty Snack Ranking. Image source: Meituan Dianping '2020 China Specialty Snack Ranking'.
Looking through ancient texts, braised food has been widely spread in Chinese culinary civilization, with a long cultural accumulation and stable consumption base. As Chinese people become more confident in Chinese culture, Chinese cuisine is also rising. With the strong purchasing power of young people, braised food consumers are entering a new growth period.
The consumption of leisure braised products, along with the continuous improvement of domestic packaging, logistics, and other infrastructure, and the upgrading of people's consumption habits, has allowed the 'braised food' full of market vitality to step out of the dining table and into every corner of our lives. Everyone can enjoy delicious food anytime, anywhere, and happily 'open the braise'.
The leisure braised retail market has grown into a 100-billion-yuan track, but the combined market share of the three 'giants' Juewei Duck Neck, Zhou Hei Ya, and Huang Shang Huang is less than 20%. The remaining more than 80% share is still a 'blue ocean' with huge potential, providing opportunities and confidence for small and medium-sized brands aiming to compete.
The epidemic in 2020 further catalyzed the development of the braised food market. Consumers 'staying at home' had their 'taste buds' further opened, the braised products market heated up comprehensively, online sales of braised snacks maintained high growth, and the growth rate of braised cooked food was also significant.
Netizens sharing braised snacks. Image source: Xiaohongshu, Weibo.
On social media platforms such as Weibo and Xiaohongshu, netizens are very enthusiastic about discussing and sharing braised snacks. Some even call braised food 'the taste that best represents China'. Consumers' love for braised food is evident.
Although Chinese consumers have always had a demand for braised food, the following factors have accelerated the development of the leisure braised market:
The low overall share of traditional giants creates opportunities and confidence for the rise of new braised brands; traditional braised brands such as Zhou Hei Ya, Juewei Duck Neck, and Dezhou Braised Chicken innovate and seize online sales share; KOL sharing on WeChat, Weibo, Douyin, and Taobao platforms, and influencer live streaming, bring a braised consumption boom; the advancement of fresh-keeping technology breaks time and space limitations, satisfying consumers' desire for fresh braised food;
The rise of national trends, and the release of national sentiment towards 'braised food' as a representative of Chinese cuisine...
**-03-**
# **Rivalry heats up: Who will become the 'new leader' in the 100-billion-yuan braised arena?**
The traditional braised products industry was mainly operated by small workshops. With consumption upgrades leading to more brand consumption, the industry's branding trend is obvious.
However, the current braised market brand concentration is still very low, and the industry pattern is relatively fragmented. In addition to giant brands such as Juewei Food, Zhou Hei Ya, Ziyan, and Huang Shang Huang, more regional brands and new brands such as Braised Awakening, Wangxiaolu, Haobashi, and Xiaoxianlu have also seized the opportunity to enter.
The pattern of many players vying for dominance has emerged, and the battle for the 'leader' in the braised arena is accelerating.
Data source: Frost & Sullivan, Huachuang Securities. Image source: 2021 Braised Products Industry Consumption Trend Report.
With the advancement of production techniques, the active braised market is also breaking through original imagination.
Self-heating technology brings new experiences to braised food. Consumers can now eat steaming hot braised food, such as self-heating braised chicken, self-heating pig trotters, and Bò Bò Chicken hot pot.
Under the concept of 'everything can be braised', plant-based ribs, bamboo shoot-stuffed vegetarian meat, and other plant-based meats also bring fresh textures to braised food, blurring the boundary between meat and vegetables.
With the temptation of a 100-billion-yuan market, both new and old brands are entering. Who can seize the C position? We have summarized several representative 'cultivation methods' in the market to share with you:
**1. Create a new 'sect' - open a new track and master pricing power**
Although time-honored brands and regional flavor brands are awakening, moving from local specialties to national brands, the braised products track is large in scale, has good prospects, and has not formed a monopoly pattern, providing good growth space for new brands.
National consumption and aesthetic upgrades, and the improvement of e-commerce logistics and other infrastructure, have further driven braised brands to accelerate branding from marketing, visual packaging, to new media cooperation.
In the braised products industry, Juewei Food, Zhou Hei Ya, and Huang Shang Huang, as the three giants, are all listed, and their gross margins have remained above 30% for many years. They have absolute advantages in traditional offline store distribution channels.
The rise of live-streaming e-commerce, social media, and KOL/KOC带货 has created a fair opportunity for new brands to 'compete on stage' and win a place in the arena, making this track more lively and competition more intense.
New consumer brands have sprung up like mushrooms, making the braised arena 'full of sects'. New entrants inevitably need to redefine the 'martial arts rules'. For example, new brands generally price higher than traditional time-honored brands, some even several times the market average. Leading new brands in categories such as Zhong Xue Gao, Heytea, and Pop Mart price higher than competitors. This increases profits and helps elevate quality.
Wangxiaolu's tiger skin chicken feet, priced at 114.8 yuan/200g*3 (discounted to 74.8 yuan). Image source: Wangxiaolu Tmall flagship store.
Taurus's Secret beef jerky, 65 yuan/box (8 bags x 120g). Image source: Taurus's Secret JD flagship store.
New brands rarely follow a cost-performance route. On the one hand, they maintain close contact with consumers through social media, have a clearer understanding of consumer needs and tastes, and have a certain product confidence; on the other hand, new brands have high distribution investment and high risk (expensive R&D, complex R&D paths), requiring higher profits as a guarantee.
Whoever can create new consumer products that better meet consumer needs will have a certain market pricing power. Only by unifying market resources, market demand, and product solutions can a truly new consumer category be created and actual market pricing power be achieved.
**2. Omnichannel layout - step out of regionalization, everyone can braise**
Offline is currently the main channel for braised product consumption, followed by online or takeout; leading braised brands have offline stores across the country, providing braised food lovers with the market's烟火气.
Distribution of consumer purchase channels for braised products. Image source: 2021 Braised Products Industry Consumption Trend Report.
The rapid development of e-commerce has further accelerated the integration of braised channels. Online channels for braised products are not to be outdone, with consumption scale increasing rapidly year by year; among Taobao platforms, Tmall dominates and its share is increasing year by year, with the growth in the number of buyers being the main driving factor.
Excerpt from the 2021 Braised Products Industry Consumption Trend Report. Image source: 2021 Braised Products Industry Consumption Trend Report.
Live-streaming e-commerce, as a new channel, can contribute to sales growth and market share more efficiently, becoming the preferred sales channel for many braised foods, especially new brands. With the improvement of same-city delivery capabilities, high-frequency categories have achieved good online penetration. The development of 5G technology enhances video-based product display and timely feedback, and with live-streaming e-commerce, it is expected to achieve online penetration of non-standard high-priced goods.
Li Jiaqi and Viya Taobao live streaming. Image source: Screenshots of Li Jiaqi and Viya Taobao live streaming.
The current low market concentration in the braised market reflects the lack of a leading brand with absolute dominance, which is actually an opportunity for more regional and startup brands to break through and expand.
The rapid development of domestic e-commerce has driven changes in the sales channel structure of braised food. Online purchases through e-commerce platforms plus takeout have accounted for 34% of total sales.
Excerpt from the 2021 Braised Products Industry Consumption Trend Report. Image source: 2021 Braised Products Industry Consumption Trend Report.
Local specialty foods are upgrading and expanding sales scope through online channels. For example, Guangdong char siu, Wenzhou duck tongue, Hangzhou braised duck, Harbin red sausage, Quzhou duck head, Nanjing salted duck, and Beijing braised offal are all seizing consumers' dining tables and young people's taste buds through omnichannel layout.
**3. Open new scenarios - cross-category combination, 'everything can be braised'**
The combination of new technology and traditional braised food has further expanded the consumption scenarios and population penetration of braised products.
New brands focus on new R&D. They do not follow the path of time-honored brands. They jump out of the product perspective, and while ensuring product quality, they leap to integrate appearance, content, taste, and ritual, and make it logical, creating more consumption scenarios and cross-category combination opportunities for braised food.
Dezhou Braised Chicken leisure food. Image source: Dezhou Braised Chicken official website.
Traditional braised brands are also constantly expanding the consumption scenarios of braised food, from table side dishes to daily snacks. Major catering brands have entered the leisure braised market, such as Haidilao launching flavored tripe, Diandude launching pig trotter ginger, and Dezhou Braised Chicken launching leisure braised food products. No longer limited by stores and tableware, everyone can enjoy braised food anytime, anywhere.
Integration of leisure and table scenarios. Image source: 2021 Braised Products Industry Consumption Trend Report.
**4. No freshness, no braise - focus on flavor preservation and increase user repurchase rate**
Previously, the braised food industry was concentrated offline, partly due to preservation technology limitations. Fresh braised food from markets tastes good but is difficult to store and prone to spoilage, while vacuum packaging sacrifices some flavor. Consumers' demands for taste and convenience have pushed braised preservation technology to upgrade.
With technological innovation on the supply side, the development of cold chain logistics, and consumer demand for fresh and healthy products, boxed fresh-keeping packaging has risen in the braised market. Although the unit price of fresh-keeping packaging is relatively higher, the number of consumers has doubled.
According to the 2021 Braised Products Industry Consumption Trend Report, the number of consumers of fresh-keeping short-shelf-life braised products on Tmall increased by more than 100% in 2020 compared to 2019.
For Chinese people, the most beloved is the warm market flavor. Fast pace and industrialization make us busy and indifferent. Some brands with market freshness can often stimulate consumer goodwill.
Going against the trend, the new braised brand 'Braised Awakening' claims to abandon the monotonous industrial flavor and recreate the regional flavors that exist in the market, such as each chicken foot being manually de-clawed, and through three processes of 'Hakka salt-baked, soulful braising, and low-temperature slow roasting', allowing everyone to truly experience the freshness of 'just out of the pot'.
Braised Awakening. Image source: Braised Awakening Tmall flagship store.
Xiaoxianlu is a new braised brand launched on Tmall in 2020. One of its duck collarbone products sold over 4,000 units per month. Xiaoxianlu focuses on room-temperature preservation, requiring no cold chain transportation or refrigerator storage, and extends the shelf life to 90 days. While maintaining fresh taste, Xiaoxianlu also expands sales scenarios.
Xiaoxianlu. Image source: Weibo @Xiaoxianlu official Weibo.
Su Hua, head of Xiaoxianlu brand, said that taste and preservation have a natural conflict. Xiaoxianlu spent nearly three years polishing materials, formulas, and packaging. For example, the packaging box uses a three-layer 'protection' of PET printing layer, AL aluminum film light-blocking high-barrier layer, and PA nylon anti-puncture layer, filled with 99.99% nitrogen, and with special high-barrier material packaging, it pioneered a curved high-temperature sterilization preservation technology in the industry, which can preserve at room temperature for 90 days, fully restoring the fresh braised taste.
Many people eat braised food for its 'heavy taste' - spicy enough, sour enough, to be satisfying. In the market, spicy braised consumption accounts for 60% of total braised consumption. Various spicy flavors such as sour and spicy, pickled pepper, and Sichuan pepper are constantly conquering people's taste buds. How to 'lock in' the true spiciness and freshness while being easy to clean and odor-free is also an area where brands need to improve in craftsmanship.
**5. Precisely target users - let 'niche carnival' attract 'mass attention'**
Today's market environment is fair to all brands, and new brands have the same opportunities as traditional giants. In the new consumption environment, traditional blockbuster theories are gradually failing. The core now is precise audience targeting, meaning brands should not initially aim to sell to 100 million people, but rather focus on 10 million precise users and repeatedly sell products to them.
Audience positioning has become the breakthrough strategy for new brands.
Excerpt from the 2021 Braised Products Industry Consumption Trend Report. Image source: 2021 Braised Products Industry Consumption Trend Report.
According to the '2021 Braised Products Industry Consumption Trend Report' released by China Business Network and Tmall, female consumers are the main force in the braised snack market, accounting for over 60% of consumption, and their consumption scale and growth rate are higher than males; female consumers' spending power is also not to be underestimated, with per capita consumption amount and growth rate significantly exceeding male consumers, making them the true 'big shots' of braised food.
2019-2020 Tmall platform eight strategy groups' braised product consumption share and growth rate. Image source: 2021 Braised Products Industry Consumption Trend Report.
Gen Z and new white-collar workers are the main consumers of braised products. Gen Z is the main consumer force, leading in both consumption scale and number of consumers, while new white-collar workers and refined mothers have huge potential, with rapid consumption scale growth and higher average order value.
Because 'spicy' is addictive like coffee and cola, braised foods containing spicy flavors have high repurchase rates. Many users buy more than 6 times a year on Tmall. These are core users in the brand's 'private domain traffic'.
Netizens sharing braised snack 'Taurus's Secret'. Image source: Xiaohongshu @a haha sister.
Young consumers like to 'plant grass' for brands and foods they have recently experienced, posting beautiful photos and videos on social platforms such as Weibo, WeChat Moments, and Xiaohongshu, acting like walking billboards, influencing people around them and fans. Using 'niche carnival' to attract 'mass attention' has become the breakthrough strategy for many new brands.
**6. Create new categories - plant-based meat enters, diversified 'braising'**
The plant-based trend has pushed plant-based meat braised consumption to the forefront. Various plant-based meats and plant-based seafood products are emerging, and the boundary between meat and vegetables is blurring. Compared to animal products, plant-based foods refer to foods made with plant protein instead of animal protein, expanding the braised food consumer base.
Among the current plant-based foods in the market, plant-based dairy, plant-based meat, and plant-based eggs are relatively mature. Following consumption experiences such as fitness and body shaping, dental care, buying flowers, and diving, the new middle class may add eating plant-based foods to their beautiful life.
Plant-based meat braised product: Haobashi·Fresh Braised·Plant-based Steak. Image source: Tmall.
Wangxiaolu plant-based ribs. Image source: 'Wangxiaolu' WeChat official account.
In the field of plant-based meat braised food, representative products include Haobashi's 'Plant-based Steak' and Wangxiaolu's plant-based ribs, with soybean textured protein as the main raw material.
With the addition of plant-based meat series products, consumers can enjoy more diverse braised products.
Reviewing these 'clever tricks' of braised brands competing for market share, we find that the era of 'one trick works everywhere' is over. 'Comprehensive all-rounders' can better occupy a place when venturing into the arena.
**-04-**
**Conclusion**
Braised food has transformed towards branding, youthfulness, and fashion, changing from a simple side dish to a leisure snack to 'play' with.
Leisure braised food is a market with high fragmentation, low barriers, and huge demand. In such market competition, brands compete not only in enterprise scale, R&D strength, and marketing strategies, but also in how to explore more segmented needs and expand new sales channels, which may be the key to determining victory.
With many players vying for dominance, who will seize the C position? Let's wait and see!
Source: FBIF Food & Beverage Innovation
(id: FoodInnovation)
Tips will be paid 400-2000 yuan once adopted.


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