Over the past few months, I visited 20 to 30 bulk food distributors and also spoke with operators in supermarkets, community fresh food stores, snack discount formats, and other businesses.
Two outcomes are emerging in the frontline market.
Some are exiting loss-making contracted sections and shrinking low-productivity stores; others continue to fill out categories and contract dedicated areas, pushing operations down to individual stores, individual cabinets, and individual bins.
Snack discount stores continue to divert traffic, and fresh snack brands are accelerating their entry into regional supermarkets. Traditional bulk foods are under simultaneous pressure on space, price, and profit.
But the closer I get to the frontline, the more I feel: bulk foods still have opportunities, provided we rethink two things.
💡First, growth must return to everyday household shopping.
Consumers' motivation to make a special trip to supermarkets to buy bulk foods is weakening, but fresh food and household traffic remain stable. When customers come to buy vegetables, meat, eggs, and milk, in the same shopping trip they also need breakfast items, family snacks, and festive entertaining foods.
The bulk food section should follow the household shopping flow and organize these needs into an assortment that is easy to choose from and easy to pair. Location, assortment, price bands, and in-store experience should all be designed around “how to make customers casually pick up one more bag.”
💡Second, cooperation must move toward category management.
In the past, retailers cared about space fees, while distributors cared about location and products. Today, duplicate SKUs, inventory, shrinkage, and fixed costs keep squeezing profits, so both sides need to jointly judge products, allocate actions, and review results.
Brand owners provide products and key-node resources, distributors take on assortment building, operations, and terminal services, and retailers provide traffic, scenarios, and store coordination. Only when all three parties sit at the same operating table can the shelf be run as a business.
How can household demand be translated into an assortment? How should one choose between cabinet contracting, section contracting, and joint operation? How can hundreds of SKUs improve bin efficiency? How should the Chinese New Year goods business be planned in advance?
As bulk foods enter a stage of repositioning, redivision of labor, and recalculation, the industry needs a more focused and in-depth exchange.
🔥 “New Order · New Business” First National Bulk Food Business Conference
📅 October 18–19, 2026
📍 Dongguan, China
The conference plans to bring together 300+ bulk food distributors, 100+ retailers, and heads of leading brands.
🔍 Morning of October 18
Field study at “Dongguan Kunji, benchmark for bulk food section contracting”; a special training by Zhang Xuechao will be held concurrently.
🔍 Afternoon of October 18–19
Two industry sessions will discuss the role of distributors, assortment structure, category share, single-bin efficiency, as well as category adjustments and retailer-supplier cooperation after fresh snacks enter supermarkets.
Hsu Fu Chi will also systematically break down for the first time the “100% Doubling Model for the Big Chinese New Year Goods Business,” explaining category exclusive sales, scenario creation, product combinations, terminal display, and promotion execution.
🌟See real stores, hear frontline playbooks, and re-sort your own bulk food business.
⬇️Click the product card to learn more about the conference and pre-register.
Over the past few months, I visited 20 to 30 bulk food distributors and also spoke with operators in supermarkets, community fresh food stores, snack discount formats, and other businesses.
Two outcomes are emerging in the frontline market.
Some are exiting loss-making contracted sections and shrinking low-productivity stores; others continue to fill out categories and contract dedicated areas, pushing operations down to individual stores, individual cabinets, and individual bins.
Snack discount stores continue to divert traffic, and fresh snack brands are accelerating their entry into regional supermarkets. Traditional bulk foods are under simultaneous pressure on space, price, and profit.
But the closer I get to the frontline, the more I feel: bulk foods still have opportunities, provided we rethink two things.
💡First, growth must return to everyday household shopping.
Consumers' motivation to make a special trip to supermarkets to buy bulk foods is weakening, but fresh food and household traffic remain stable. When customers come to buy vegetables, meat, eggs, and milk, in the same shopping trip they also need breakfast items, family snacks, and festive entertaining foods.
The bulk food section should follow the household shopping flow and organize these needs into an assortment that is easy to choose from and easy to pair. Location, assortment, price bands, and in-store experience should all be designed around “how to make customers casually pick up one more bag.”
💡Second, cooperation must move toward category management.
In the past, retailers cared about space fees, while distributors cared about location and products. Today, duplicate SKUs, inventory, shrinkage, and fixed costs keep squeezing profits, so both sides need to jointly judge products, allocate actions, and review results.
Brand owners provide products and key-node resources, distributors take on assortment building, operations, and terminal services, and retailers provide traffic, scenarios, and store coordination. Only when all three parties sit at the same operating table can the shelf be run as a business.
How can household demand be translated into an assortment? How should one choose between cabinet contracting, section contracting, and joint operation? How can hundreds of SKUs improve bin efficiency? How should the Chinese New Year goods business be planned in advance?
As bulk foods enter a stage of repositioning, redivision of labor, and recalculation, the industry needs a more focused and in-depth exchange.
🔥 “New Order · New Business” First National Bulk Food Business Conference
📅 October 18–19, 2026
📍 Dongguan, China
The conference plans to bring together 300+ bulk food distributors, 100+ retailers, and heads of leading brands.
🔍 Morning of October 18
Field study at “Dongguan Kunji, benchmark for bulk food section contracting”; a special training by Zhang Xuechao will be held concurrently.
🔍 Afternoon of October 18–19
Two industry sessions will discuss the role of distributors, assortment structure, category share, single-bin efficiency, as well as category adjustments and retailer-supplier cooperation after fresh snacks enter supermarkets.
Hsu Fu Chi will also systematically break down for the first time the “100% Doubling Model for the Big Chinese New Year Goods Business,” explaining category exclusive sales, scenario creation, product combinations, terminal display, and promotion execution.
🌟See real stores, hear frontline playbooks, and re-sort your own bulk food business.
⬇️Click the product card to learn more about the conference and pre-register.
