If 2024 was a year when the snack industry split like a river, with more traditional snack companies mired in difficulties while bulk snack retailers surged ahead, then 2025, 'supermarketization' has become a watershed in the snack track. Bulk snack players are no longer content with the snack collection store business, and have been experimenting with new formats, either rebranding or upgrading—evolving from 'snack stores' into 'money-saving supermarkets' and 'wholesale supermarkets'. A new round of competition centered on 'supermarketization' has quietly begun, with leading bulk snack players trying to find a new growth point beyond the snack track. On January 22, Zhao Yiming's franchise WeChat public account announced that Zhao Yiming Money-Saving Supermarket was newly launched. According to a report by Lianshang.com, Zhao Yiming's new store format has been optimized in terms of store decoration and area, with a deep optimization of product structure, a rich and diverse category mix, and better alignment with consumer demand. The new store format typically covers an area of 180-240 square meters, adding more than 400 new SKUs, covering daily necessities, stationery, trendy toys, eggs, and other diversified products to fully meet consumer needs. At the same time, the store has newly launched short-shelf-life bread, placed prominently at the store entrance, specifically displaying freshly baked short-shelf-life bread, and has added a fresh food, fresh milk, and low-temperature frozen products section to meet daily community needs. In January this year, Zhao Yiming Money-Saving Supermarket also announced its latest franchise policy for 2025. Currently, multiple stores have already opened. Previously, on January 10, Wanchen Group announced that its first 'Laiyoupin' money-saving supermarket opened in Hefei, expanding its category coverage from leisure snacks to rice, flour, cooking oil, eggs, milk, and paper products, with SKU count expanding to around 3,000. Relatively speaking, in terms of 'supermarketization', Zhao Yiming and Laiyoupin are latecomers. As early as June 2024, Snack Youming had already opened its first Snack Youming wholesale supermarket in Chengdu. The first 'Snack Youming Wholesale Supermarket' landed in Chengdu in June 2024, and as of December 2024, its store count had exceeded 1,000. In addition, many players have entered the 'discount supermarket' format, including Snack Youxuan, Three Squirrels, Qiahuo Puzi, and others. In September, Snack Youxuan's sub-brand Huizhen Wholesale Supermarket began stocking; Ai Snacks announced the addition of a convenience store format in August; Qiahuo Puzi transformed into a supermarket by expanding its full category; Xixi Snacks opened Wuxiaochao Wholesale Department; and Laiyifen opened its first warehouse membership store with an annual membership fee of 99 yuan. In addition, Three Squirrels has also expanded into bulk snack and discount supermarket businesses through acquisitions of Ai Discount and Ai Snacks, and has claimed it will 'open 200 hard discount supermarkets within 60 days'. The apparent core logic behind snack bulk stores entering the discount supermarket space is to use the snack store as an entrance to attract traffic, offering high-cost-performance products and full-category SKUs to attract consumers, thereby increasing store traffic and achieving revenue growth. In reality, in the fiercely competitive snack market, small and medium players can no longer 'keep up the fight'. The logic is simple: First, although the bulk snack market is still growing, it is becoming saturated. Even though CICC's 2024 report judged that the bulk snack industry still has room to double in 3-5 years and has great future prospects, the market reaction shows increasingly fierce competition, and after aggressive expansion, the pace of store openings has begun to slow. To continue growing, it is necessary to expand categories. Second, the average transaction value in discount supermarkets is relatively higher. The average transaction value in snack stores is 20-30 yuan, while the supermarket format adds high-repurchase categories such as fresh produce and daily chemicals, which can further increase the average transaction value and improve single-store profitability. Third, supply chain advantages can be replicated. Snack collection stores have succeeded with a model of high turnover and high gross margin using 'white-label + second-tier brands', and this model can be replicated in discount supermarkets, still reducing costs by cutting intermediate links and shortening the supply chain. But the question is: can snack collection stores do supermarkets well? From an operational difficulty perspective, snack collection stores have around 1,000 SKUs, while supermarkets often have more than 3,000 SKUs, significantly increasing the difficulty of product management, inventory turnover, and supply chain matching. From a competitive landscape perspective, the competitors of discount supermarkets are not only fellow bulk snack retailers, but also regional supermarkets that have been rooted in the market for years, such as Leerle. To truly capture the market, it is not just about expanding SKUs. The essence of bulk snack stores is community hard discount stores, while discount supermarkets take the low-price model further. Doing discount supermarkets is more difficult. First, the product system is more complex. Snack SKU structures are simple, while supermarkets involve fresh produce, general merchandise, and daily chemicals, greatly increasing supply chain management difficulty; second, costs are higher. Supermarkets have larger areas, and rent, labor, and logistics costs all rise; third, competition is more intense. Traditional supermarkets such as Carrefour and RT-Mart have already failed. The hard discount model requires deep cultivation of each category. Consumers need not only basic livelihood categories like rice, flour, and cooking oil, but also fresh fruits, frozen foods, etc., rather than superficially hanging a snack store sign and using fresh produce bestsellers to attract traffic and then selling other categories. More importantly, hard discount supermarkets need to balance overall operational efficiency, such as labor efficiency and logistics systems, and cannot simply mix different categories together. In fact, many brands in China have tried the 'discount supermarket' model, but almost none have truly succeeded. Of course, this does not mean that bulk snack stores have no chance in transforming into discount supermarkets; it just means they face more and greater difficulties and pressures. At the same time, traditional snack companies are not calm either. On one hand, the traditional snack brand Three Squirrels is advancing rapidly, with revenue breaking the 10 billion yuan mark again and net profit surging nearly 90% year-on-year; on the other hand, the former 'snack leader' Liangpin Puzi and the old snack company Laiyifen have fallen into unprecedented loss quagmires. On the evening of January 16, Liangpin Puzi (603719.SH) released its 2024 performance forecast, expecting a net loss attributable to shareholders of the listed company of 25 million to 40 million yuan, compared with a profit of 180 million yuan in the same period last year. It is worth noting that this is Liangpin Puzi's first annual loss since its listing in 2020. According to the forecast, the company continued to follow the 'price reduction without quality reduction' policy in 2024, further implementing price reduction strategies for some products in the store channel, and made adjustments in product structure and attempts at new categories. The price reductions and product structure adjustments affected the company's gross margin, resulting in a decline in net profit. In fact, from peak to trough, Liangpin Puzi took only three years. At the end of 2023, Liangpin Puzi grandly announced 'price reduction without quality reduction', with 300 products averaging a 22% price cut and a maximum reduction of 45%. The logic of the price war was simple—under the impact of bulk snack stores, Liangpin Puzi hoped to retain consumers by lowering prices while expanding market share. But reality was crueler: the price cuts led to a decline in gross margin. In the third quarter of 2024, Liangpin Puzi's gross margin fell from 28.54% to 26.84%, and net profit growth dropped by nearly 90%. More fatally, consumers' brand perception wavered. The once high-end snack brand is now selling 'cost-effectiveness'. But bulk snack brands represented by 'Mingming Henmang' and 'Haoxianglai' rose and expanded rapidly, with their cost-effective model being well received by consumers. They have lower prices and wider channels, and Liangpin Puzi has no advantage compared with them. The market landscape has been reshaped, with consumer demand for high-end snacks declining and a preference for 'good quality and low price' products. In addition, Liangpin Puzi has been plagued by negative events, damaging its brand image. In 2024, Liangpin Puzi was caught in a public opinion storm over the 'ingredient label fraud' incident. Although regulatory authorities determined that the allegations were unfounded, the incident still had a negative impact on the brand image. Compared with Liangpin Puzi, Laiyifen's (603777.SH) predicament is more direct—its market is being eroded by bulk snack stores. In 2024, Laiyifen's East China stronghold was completely lost, with revenue in Shanghai alone dropping by nearly 1 billion yuan. To break out, Laiyifen attempted to bet on the 'snack + community' model, forming a joint venture with Yangchanji to establish a bulk snack brand. But the problem is that the market has long been occupied by Snack Henmang and Haoxianglai, and Laiyifen's late arrival seems like a doomed struggle. Laiyifen recently released a performance forecast, expecting a net profit of -86 million yuan for 2024, a decrease of 143.05 million yuan compared with the same period last year, a year-on-year decline of 251%; non-GAAP net profit is expected to be -76 million yuan, a decrease of 87.7 million yuan compared with the same period last year, a year-on-year decline of 750%. In contrast, Three Squirrels has made a strong comeback, with revenue returning to 10 billion yuan and net profit increasing nearly 90% year-on-year. On January 21, Three Squirrels (300783.SZ) released a performance forecast showing that for the full year of 2024, the company expects to achieve operating revenue of 10.2 billion to 10.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 43.37% to 51.80%; net profit of 400 million to 420 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 81.99% to 91.09%. This performance growth is mainly attributed to the company's firm implementation of the 'high-end cost-effectiveness' strategy and its continued deep cultivation of the 'full category + full channel' model. Three Squirrels no longer blindly pursues traditional e-commerce on Tmall and JD.com, but instead bets on live streaming and content e-commerce. At the same time, Three Squirrels abandoned inefficient direct-operated stores and focused on franchising and retail terminals, such as investing in the bulk snack brand 'Ai Snacks' to seize the lower-tier market. Three Squirrels' counterattack relies not on price wars, but on channel transformation and brand upgrading. A brand that once rose through Taobao has again turned the tables with new e-commerce. Of course, the future of the snack industry will not stop at 'supermarketization' or 'e-commerce-ization'. Price wars are ultimately not the solution to problems. The real path to breakthrough remains improving supply chain efficiency, building brand power, and accurately capturing consumer demand. In this 'elimination round' of the snack industry, only players who truly adapt to market changes can laugh last. 【New Order · Symbiosis】 ****The 10th China FMCG Innovation Conference Time: March 17-19, 2025 Location: Chengdu, China