Source丨Frontier of Entrepreneurship In front of shelves and displays filled with various brands of ham sausages of all sizes, Liu Fang, together with her husband and 7-year-old son, picked up a promotional pack of Shuanghui Wangzhongwang premium ham sausages priced at only 15.9 yuan. After carefully comparing with other brands on the shelf, they ultimately put down the Shuanghui and instead picked up a Jinluo Wangzhongwang premium ham sausage of the same specification, which was priced at 16.9 yuan but came with a buy-one-get-one-free offer. "Jinluo is also a brand; for the price of one pack of Shuanghui, you can get two packs of Jinluo by adding just one yuan. It's such a bargain," Liu Fang told the reporter bluntly. In 2025, the trend of "pingti" (affordable alternatives) has finally swept into every aspect of people's lives. As the ham sausage industry enters a stock market, the competition Shuanghui faces is becoming increasingly severe. In a small city in Henan, Shuanghui founder Wan Long led Luohe Meat Processing Plant on a remarkable journey of counterattack, creating the "Shuanghui Meat Products Kingdom" of today. Over the past 41 years, Shuanghui has carried the childhood memories of the post-80s and post-90s generations, from cold storage counters in first-tier CBDs to snack shelves in rural convenience stores. However, with the rapid development of the food delivery industry and the continuous improvement of people's living standards, on one hand, the ham sausage market is on a downward trend; on the other hand, offline channels are becoming increasingly difficult for selling products, and more brands are joining the competition. The "King of Ham Sausages" is now facing a "siege" from all sides. Today, this leading Chinese meat products company with a market value of over 85 billion yuan is struggling to hide its declining performance—aging brand image, wavering consumer loyalty, and still no new growth curve. Shuanghui urgently needs a new story. Ham Sausages Are No Longer Appealing In the childhood memories of the post-80s and post-90s generations, there must be a memory like this—holding a red-packaged ham sausage, biting the metal ring at one end with your teeth, spinning the sausage in your hand and pulling it off to reveal the pink, fragrant meat sausage inside. Then placing it into a bowl of instant noodles, slurping a mouthful of noodles, and taking a bite of the ham sausage—this is nothing less than a delicacy of the world. As they grew older, deep-fried or grilled starch sausages became their favorites. These sausages neither turn into hard lumps nor become greasy like meat sausages, satisfying all the snack fantasies of these young people during their student days. "In that era of underdeveloped economy and limited choices, Shuanghui ham sausage was truly a 'premium snack.' If parents used Shuanghui ham sausage to stir-fry some greens, it was definitely a treat for the family," Xu An'an, a post-90s born in Chengde, Hebei, told the reporter. "When I went to school away from home, on the train, I would open a pack of instant noodles, add hot water and seasoning, and add a Shuanghui ham sausage—full of memories." Image / Shuanghui official Weibo However, in 2003, a list titled "Top Ten Junk Foods Announced by the WHO" appeared, and the label of "junk food" spread like wildfire for instant noodles, canned food, ham sausages, carbonated drinks, puffed food, etc. From then on, ham sausages and other foods began to be labeled as "junk food." Although the WHO later refuted this in 2018, stating that it had never published a list of junk foods, the stereotype of "junk food" had already become deeply rooted in people's minds. In the past few years, Shuanghui's ham sausages have gradually retreated to a corner of Chinese people's taste memories—more and more young people, influenced by the health trend, are turning to healthy eating. Luo Ying, born in 1992 and living in Beijing, considers herself past the age of loving "junk food" and has no interest in ham sausages at all. "I haven't eaten instant noodles, ham sausages, or similar foods for three or four years. They are on my 'junk food, unhealthy' list," she said. Even Xu An'an rarely eats ham sausages now. "Ham sausages are the recognized 'golden partner' of instant noodles, but I rarely eat instant noodles now, so I even less often think of buying ham sausages." The ham sausages that the previous generation couldn't forget may not be bought by young people. A primary school student born after 2015 told the reporter, "Usually, my mom buys my snacks. She doesn't allow me to eat these 'junk foods,' and I also think ham sausages don't taste appealing to me—they're too salty." The ham sausage industry has begun a process of "slow" decline. According to data from MaiShangYing Brand CT for 2025Q1, in the convenience food category, room-temperature ham sausages and low-temperature sausages ranked second and third with market shares of 17.48% and 12.11%, respectively, but their market share year-on-year growth rates both declined by more than 4%. Shuanghui, the industry leader, is also beginning to feel the pressure on its performance. Image / Photo by TuChong, based on VRF agreement Financial reports show that in 2024, Shuanghui Development achieved revenue of 59.72 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 0.64%; net profit attributable to the parent company was 4.989 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 1.26%. The 2025 first-quarter report shows that the company's operating revenue was 14.269 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 0.09%, and net profit attributable to the parent company was 1.137 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 10.58%. It is worth noting that since 2021, Shuanghui Development's revenue has declined year-on-year for four consecutive years. Although net profit has fluctuated, the 2024 net profit of 4.989 billion yuan is still far from the 5.621 billion yuan in 2022. When the golden era of "a bowl of instant noodles with a sausage" comes to an end, and with the "junk food" label that cannot be shaken off and being in a declining industry, Shuanghui's meat products business urgently needs to tell a new story. "Following the Predecessor's Path" On August 29, 2024, Wan Hongwei took over the baton of Shuanghui's chairman from his father Wan Long. Subsequently, Shuanghui's official website released Wan Hongwei's statement after assuming the chairmanship, in which the most frequently used word was "inheritance." Wan Hongwei stated that in the future, he will do a good job in spiritual inheritance, cultural inheritance, management mechanism and system inheritance, and strategic inheritance. "We will not waver in our focus on meat processing, nor will we deviate from the meat industry. From now on, the direction will not change, the goals will not change, and we will implement the operational goals of the ninth board of directors." However, even with the inheritance of Wan Long's will, and efforts in channels, business, and new products, it is still difficult to change Shuanghui's declining performance in the short term. In his 2024 New Year message, Wan Long mentioned, "This year, we must accelerate the doubling of sales outlets, improve the pace of industrialization and diversification, continue to expand the scale of the industry, and promote the joint growth and strengthening of all industries." In 2025, outlet development and expansion still appear in the company's strategic plans. Over the past 41 years, Shuanghui has established its "channel empire" across the country. Whether in large supermarkets in first-tier cities or small shops in remote villages, Shuanghui products can always be found. This astonishing penetration capability in offline channels is an important reason why Shuanghui has firmly held the market leader position in the industry. Image / Shuanghui official Weibo According to Shuanghui's official website, Shuanghui has built 30 modern meat processing bases and supporting industries in 18 provinces (municipalities) across the country, with over 2 million sales terminals, and more than 10,000 tons of products sold nationwide every day. However, although the number of offline distributor channels has increased, revenue has declined instead of rising. Financial reports show that as of the end of December 2024, the company had a total of 21,282 distributors, a net increase of 3,522 from the beginning of the year, an increase of 19.83%. However, distribution operating revenue decreased by 2.5% compared with the same period last year. In terms of business, Shuanghui is also making efforts to change and trying to establish a "second growth curve." It has expanded new businesses including pig farming and broiler chicken industrialization, but the performance of these new businesses in 2024 is not optimistic. In 2020, Shuanghui Development raised nearly 7 billion yuan through a private placement to implement fundraising projects, including broiler chicken industrialization capacity construction projects, pig farming capacity construction projects, pig slaughtering and prepared dishes technical transformation projects, and meat products processing technical transformation projects. All these projects were completed before August 2023. Financial reports show that in 2024, among the above projects, the broiler chicken industrialization project, pig farming project, and pig slaughtering and prepared dishes technical transformation project were all in a loss-making state, with net losses of 308 million yuan, 72.293 million yuan, and 5.8493 million yuan, respectively. In terms of products, Shuanghui has launched new products in recent years, such as Jinmake, Huoxuanfeng, Zhiquduo cod fish sausages, and Baozhi cheese sausages, but none have made a splash. Image / Shuanghui official Weibo In Shuanghui's Tmall flagship store, compared with the Shuanghui Wangzhongwang ham sausages that have transaction volumes of over 200,000 or 300,000 units, new products such as Shuanghui spicy ham sausages and Zhiquduo cod fish sausages have monthly sales ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand units, far behind the traditional products. In offline channels, new product sales are also not optimistic. "Many consumers buy them out of curiosity to try, but what sells best in our store is still the combo pack of Shuanghui chicken ham sausages and the classic Shuanghui Wangzhongwang," a snack sales promoter told the reporter bluntly. Media professional Liu Xiaoqian said that she feels Shuanghui ham sausages, Shuanghui low-temperature meat products, and Shuanghui chilled fresh meat have always shared the single "Shuanghui" brand, lacking fresh blood. "Just look at their R&D investment: a company with nearly 60 billion in revenue spends only 200 million on R&D, which accounts for only 0.34% of revenue," Liu Xiaoqian told the reporter, expressing concern about Shuanghui's state of "living on past glories." Under the premise of inheriting Wan Long's will, even if Shuanghui is willing to change, it seems it has not yet found the right "medicine" for itself. Price War 2.0 Going back to 1986, Gao Fenglai, a representative of Luoyang Meat Processing Plant, spent 1 million yuan to purchase a set of Japanese ham sausage production prototype machines. The following year, China's first ham sausage—"Chundu Brand Ham Sausage"—was born. To make ham sausages bigger and stronger, in 1991, Gao Fenglai took half of the factory's annual profit and put Chundu on CCTV advertisements. Three months later, trucks with license plates from all over the country blocked the entrance of Luoyang Meat Processing Plant, all for a box of Chundu ham sausages. In those years, seeing the popularity of ham sausages, Zhengzhou Meat Processing Plant launched "Zhengrong" ham sausages; Luohe Meat Processing Plant gave birth to Shuanghui ham sausages; Shandong's "Jinluo" emerged as a new force; Nanjing's "Yurun" also came into being. When competition became white-hot, the ham sausage industry experienced a "price war." At that time, while retaining meat sausages, Shuanghui reduced the pork content of a 100g ham sausage from 85% to 70%, and the price from 1.1 yuan to 0.9 yuan. Later, it reduced the pork content of this ham sausage to 15% and the price to 0.5 yuan. Facing competitors who initiated price wars, Chundu also followed suit by lowering prices and continuously increasing starch content. In the end, even some Chundu employees complained, "We are producing 'flour sticks.'" After the price war, Shuanghui, which had meat, began to become synonymous with ham sausages. Image / Shuanghui official Weibo Today, although firmly holding the top position in the ham sausage industry, Shuanghui is also beginning to face the situation that Chundu once faced, such as being surrounded by brands engaged in price wars, and facing the dual impact of online and offline channels brought by the rise of more brands. The reporter visited offline supermarkets and found that on the ham sausage shelves, many eye-catching yellow discount price tags were posted, trying to attract consumers' attention and stimulate their shopping desire. At the same time, brands lacking Shuanghui's brand advantage did not hesitate to compete with even cheaper prices than Shuanghui. For example, on the room-temperature ham sausage shelf, Shuanghui's combo pack of Wangzhongwang was priced at 11 yuan, while Jinluo was priced at 8.8 yuan. Similarly, in the low-temperature area for grilled sausages and other meat products, Shuanghui's Beijing-style grilled sausage was priced at 11.9 yuan, while the neighboring Jinluo had a Taiwanese-style grilled sausage priced at 11 yuan. Image / Brands engaged in price wars In this context, even if Shuanghui emphasizes strengthening new product R&D to adjust the structure and enhance product competitiveness to stabilize prices, it is clearly not easy. Under the price offensive of other products, Shuanghui's market share in ham sausages is decreasing. According to data from MaiShangYing Brand CT for 2025Q1, in the room-temperature ham sausage category in 2025Q1, the CR5 group still consists of Shuanghui, Jinluo, New Hope Liuhe, Yurun, and Licheng, together accounting for 93.28% of the market share. However, from the perspective of year-on-year changes in market share, Shuanghui, New Hope Liuhe, and Yurun saw declines, while Jinluo and Licheng saw year-on-year growth. It seems that times have come full circle. In the current context of changing consumer logic and more intense market competition, the new helmsman Wan Hongwei and Shuanghui will obviously face more tests. 🔺Scan the code for ticket consultation🔺