---
title: "The Fresh Snack Track Is Too Hot—Beware of Heatstroke!"
description: "If one were to pick the two hottest tracks in China's retail industry in 2026, one would be discount stores, and the other would definitely be fresh snacks. Facts have shown that fresh snacks have spread at a speed visible to the naked eye from regional experimental fields in Hunan and Jiangxi to commercial complexes nationwide. Recently, RT-Mart and Three Squirrels entered a strategic cooperation to enter the fresh snack track, with the first nine 'fresh snack store-in-store' locations set to land in East China in June."
author: "楚勿留香"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2026-06-15"
language: "en"
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---

# The Fresh Snack Track Is Too Hot—Beware of Heatstroke!

> If one were to pick the two hottest tracks in China's retail industry in 2026, one would be discount stores, and the other would definitely be fresh snacks. Facts have shown that fresh snacks have spread at a speed visible to the naked eye from regional experimental fields in Hunan and Jiangxi to commercial complexes nationwide. Recently, RT-Mart and Three Squirrels entered a strategic cooperation to enter the fresh snack track, with the first nine 'fresh snack store-in-store' locations set to land in East China in June.

If one were to pick the two hottest tracks in China's retail industry in 2026, one would be discount stores, and the other would definitely be fresh snacks.
Facts have shown that fresh snacks have spread at a speed visible to the naked eye from regional experimental fields in Hunan and Jiangxi to commercial complexes nationwide.
Recently, RT-Mart and Three Squirrels entered a strategic cooperation to enter the fresh snack track. In June, the first nine 'fresh snack store-in-store' locations will land in East China.
Earlier, on May 26, Lemon Right opened its first fresh snack store at Shanghai Cloud Nine City Life Center. On opening day, besides a long queue outside, the tasting area was also packed, and staff were almost constantly restocking.
During the May Day holiday, Juewei Food also opened two 'Juewei Fresh Snacks' stores in Changsha and Chengdu, with customer traffic bursting on the first day and multiple products sold out.
A lemon tea seller and a duck neck seller almost simultaneously entered the same track.
If we push the timeline further back, on April 28, Sexy Tea launched 'Ji Shi Shang Wei' (Auspicious Taste), adopting a 'store-in-store' model, initially offering over 70 fresh food items; on January 22, Mingming Henmang incubated a new fresh snack sub-brand, 'You·Tui Jian' (Recommended).
Besides new brands flooding in, established fresh snack stores are also expanding continuously.
On May 29, Changsha's Jinlimen began to step out of Hunan, opening its first store outside the province in Nanjing. Jiduquan proposed to sprint toward opening 1,000 stores by 2026. Pumama expanded from Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Fujian all the way to Xi'an. Yili NUTCO has become one of the most successful examples of cross-regional expansion for a Northeast brand.
In the past year, there has been an interesting phenomenon: almost any retail or consumer company with a bit of supply chain foundation is trying to open fresh snack stores.
Behind this is a new track with a growth rate far exceeding the industry average.
Data from Western Securities research reports show that the fresh snack track, centered on short shelf life, fresh preparation, and visualization, had a market size of 18 billion to 25 billion yuan in 2025, with a compound annual growth rate exceeding 20%.
Another set of data also proves this trend. From 2020 to 2025, this track grew from less than 5 billion yuan to about 18 billion yuan, with an average annual compound growth rate exceeding 40%, far surpassing the overall growth rate of the leisure food industry at about 8%.
This is also one of the reasons why more and more companies are flooding into the fresh snack track. But from another perspective, although the fresh snack track is currently very hot, it may not be suitable for most players.
Why did fresh snacks suddenly become popular?
Fresh snacks are not a brand-new category, but a value-upgraded form based on traditional snacks, adding attributes such as 'short shelf life, fresh preparation, and fewer additives.'
This change is to adapt to new consumer demands.
First change: Consumers are beginning to resent 'tech snacks.'
Over the past decade or so, the core logic of China's snack industry has been industrialization: longer shelf life, larger-scale production, lower costs, and wider coverage. But as consumers become more health-conscious, this logic has begun to crack.
The '2026 China Snack Consumption New Trends' white paper shows that over 60% of consumers are willing to pay a premium for low-sugar, low-fat, and low-additive products. Health has changed from a 'bonus item' to a 'decision item.'
In the past, people bought snacks based on price; now they look at the ingredient list. In the past, they cared about 'cheap or not'; now they care about 'clean or not.'
Thus, a simple and crude logic emerged: consumers naturally assume that short shelf life means 'fewer additives, fresher products, and safer quality.' Although this perception is not scientific, it has formed a consumption trend, and fresh snacks happen to hit this point.
Second change: Young people are not buying snacks; they are buying emotional value.
Consumers' needs and focus on snacks have gradually extended from price to raw material sources, production methods, and product ingredients. This is precisely the core background for the rapid rise of fresh snacks. But what truly ignited this track is not just health, but also emotional factors.
The white paper shows that 84.98% of people believe snacks can bring happiness. Thus, we see a very typical consumption scenario: eat when happy, eat when stressed, eat when bored, and even eat when anxious. Snacks are no longer just food, but a 'low-threshold emotional solution.'
Fresh snack stores happen to provide an amplifier for this emotion: open kitchens, on-site preparation, the aroma of freshly made products, and a more 'perceptible' spatial experience than traditional bulk snack stores.
In shopping malls, this experience has even become a scarce capability.
While bulk snack stores increasingly resemble warehouses, fresh snack stores increasingly resemble 'light dining spaces.' This is also why they are increasingly accepted by commercial real estate.
Third change: Bulk snacks can no longer compete.
The explosion of fresh snacks also lies in an important background: bulk snacks have entered stock competition.
In the past two years, brands like Snacks Are Busy, Zhao Yiming, and Haolaixiang have expanded crazily, causing industry competition to shift from incremental to stock competition.
This change is manifested in increasingly fierce price wars, increasingly similar SKUs, and thinner profits for franchisees. Therefore, retail companies are looking for new growth points. Some snack companies have opened discount supermarkets or wholesale supermarkets, while others have ventured into fresh snacks.
Compared with traditional snacks, fresh snacks provide another path: not competing on who is cheaper, but on who can provide a higher sense of value; not price competition, but value competition.
As early as 2024, the author learned from an industry insider close to Jinlimen that the sales volume of some of its freshly made proprietary products reached 3 to 5 times that of traditional similar products.
This means consumers are willing to pay a premium for short shelf life, freshness, and fewer additives, which is precisely the capability the snack industry most desires.
Why are leading players running faster and faster?
If we observe the current track, we will find a phenomenon: brands that can expand quickly and have a certain reputation all have impressive backgrounds.
Behind Jiduquan is the Black Classic Group; behind Pumama is Weixin Holdings; behind Juewei is a mature supply chain system; Sexy Tea has strong direct-operated capabilities...
On the surface, these companies are all selling fresh snacks, but each has its own strengths. In reality, supply chain competition is more important.
Take Jiduquan as an example: it pursues a heavy-asset supply chain approach.
In terms of expansion speed, Jiduquan is relatively aggressive and fast. As of May 20, its stores have exceeded 100, and it plans to add 600 to 1,000 stores in 2026.
Relying on the Black Classic Group, Jiduquan achieves 100% self-production of core products, over 50% self-production of all products, and plans to build 20 production bases. The Changsha Liuyang super factory has a planned area of over 150,000 square meters.
Behind this expansion speed is the support system of its parent company, the Black Classic Group.
Why does it dare to run? Because it does not open stores first, but builds factories first. Jiduquan has already achieved 100% self-production of core products, over 50% self-production of all products, and plans to build 20 production bases. Among them, the Changsha Liuyang base has a planned land area of 152 mu, equipped with over 150,000 square meters of automated workshops.
This investment is essentially not doing retail, but front-loading manufacturing capability. This is also typical supply chain first: build the backend first, then run the frontend.
Because the essential constraint of fresh snacks is time. Once a product enters a 'short shelf life structure,' the entire chain changes. If it cannot be sold, it means loss. There is no inventory safety cushion, no turnover buffer, only a time window.
Within the industry, a consensus is forming: the core indicator of fresh snacks is not sales, but loss rate.
Looking at Pumama, behind it is the multi-format layout of Weixin Holdings Group, an integrated industry chain approach.
Pumama relies on Weixin Holdings and has the trinity capability of brand, production, and retail. In other words, its capability lies not in scale, but in 'feedback speed,' that is, product iteration speed. By reaching users through multiple scenarios, Pumama achieves a monthly product update rate of about 10%, with the ability to continuously launch new products.
This is also one of the biggest competitive advantages of fresh snacks. Because consumers' sense of freshness itself has a shelf life; if products are not updated, customer traffic will decline.
Jinlimen, on the other hand, is more like an 'origin variable' and an industry pathfinder.
As one of the earliest entrants, it almost defined the industry's initial appearance: industrial-style stores, fresh preparation models, short shelf life structures, open displays, and even today many brands' store designs carry traces of its early days.
On May 29, Jinlimen's Nanjing IFCX store officially opened. This is its first real step out of Hunan. On opening day, a franchisee on site said: 'This is more like validating a model than opening a store.'
This statement is very accurate, because fresh snacks have never been a store business, but a model business. Although the brands look different, they share a common feature: these companies do not resemble retail companies, but rather supply chain companies.
Fresh snack companies do not compete on store decoration or marketing capability, but on factories, cold chains, R&D, and digital systems. Companies that can survive in the future will likely share a common label: 'brand + production + retail' integration.
The hotter the track, the easier it is to get heatstroke
Fresh snacks are very popular, but dangers are also emerging simultaneously, and they are becoming increasingly obvious.
First risk: The industry is rapidly homogenizing.
Recently, a new term has emerged in the industry: 'limenization.' It means everyone is learning from Jinlimen: industrial-style decoration, open kitchens, freshly made chestnuts, short shelf life beverages, free tastings, and freshly braised products have almost become a standard template.
Consumers walking into different brand stores begin to have an illusion: 'They all seem similar.' Consumers cannot tell the difference; brands are becoming more and more alike, with product overlaps, design overlaps, marketing overlaps, and even highly consistent store layouts.
This homogenization is not unfamiliar in the retail industry, but in the fresh snack field, it has a more dangerous amplifying effect because products have short shelf lives, so the cost of trial and error is higher.
This also means the industry is shifting from an innovation stage to an imitation stage, and the more imitation, the less profit.
Today you imitate a hit product; it may expire next week. This makes 'copying homework' faster, but also more dangerous. The more critical issue lies in the supply chain.
Many people entering this track underestimate one thing: fresh snacks are not a retail problem, but an industrial problem.
Bulk snacks can be stocked up; fresh snacks cannot. Bulk snacks can be delivered weekly; fresh snacks often require daily delivery. Bulk snacks rely on channel efficiency; fresh snacks rely on time control capability.
Second risk: Investment far exceeds imagination.
The aforementioned industry insider close to Jinlimen said that around 2024, the investment for a standard store was generally around 3 million yuan, and even after it matured, it still required about 2 million yuan.
There is also data showing that a 200-square-meter fresh snack store typically requires an initial investment of over 1.5 million yuan, covering decoration, equipment, cold chain, personnel, and inventory—all requiring real money.
This is not the model of bulk snacks where you can open a store with a few hundred thousand yuan; it is a typical heavy-asset industry. Many people only see the long queues outside fresh snack stores, but not the high costs behind them.
Third risk: Loss is the invisible killer.
The hardest part of fresh snacks is not production, but disposal.
Traditional snacks can continue to be sold if not sold out; fresh snacks can only be thrown away if not sold out. The shorter the shelf life, the higher the loss. Some practitioners have revealed that the industry's general loss rate ranges from single digits to over ten percentage points.
Once sales forecasts go wrong, profits can disappear quickly. So many people see a store's revenue of 1 million yuan, but do not notice the potential 100,000 yuan loss behind it.
Fourth risk: National replication is far more difficult than imagined.
A harsher reality is that when a store expands from 10 to 100, the difficulty does not increase 10 times, but possibly 100 times.
The enemy of fresh snacks is not just competitors, but also distance and time between stores. Stores are relatively easy to replicate, but supply chain capabilities are not. Once crossing regions, cold chain costs increase, delivery times decrease, quality control difficulty and loss rates rise, and many regional models become ineffective.
Many failures are not due to poor sales, but because products 'spoil too quickly.' This is also the most overlooked point in the industry: it does not lose on demand, but on time.
Therefore, the real competitive barrier in the fresh snack industry is not the number of stores, but flexible supply chain capabilities, dynamic replenishment systems, freshness management capabilities, etc. Without these capabilities, the faster the expansion, the greater the risk.
The endgame of fresh snacks
It is difficult to produce a second 'Snacks Are Busy'
Many people like to compare fresh snacks with bulk snacks, but in fact, they are not the same track at all. Bulk snacks sell efficiency; fresh snacks sell value. Bulk snacks compete on who opens stores faster; fresh snacks compete on who has a thicker supply chain.
Therefore, fresh snacks are unlikely to see a second 'Snacks Are Busy.' Because it is inherently unsuitable for the ten-thousand-store model, the companies that can truly survive and form national influence in the future may not be many.
It is not who opens stores fastest, who has the most traffic, or who tells the best story. It is who can do the most basic thing to the extreme: delivering a 'fresh' snack to the right store at the right time, correctly. That's all.
But this is precisely the hardest part. Behind it is not having the most stores, but having a strong supply chain, extremely low loss rates, and super factories.
Because it tests not commercial imagination, but industrial capability. The era of competing on stores has passed; the era of competing on supply chains has just begun.
Fresh snacks are not a business that can succeed just by being lively. When more and more companies pile in, the whole industry should be alert: it is not that the track is too cold, but that the track is too hot. Because all trends share a common rule: many people can see the wind, but few can survive to the end.
In the end, the fresh snack game is not about eating traffic dividends, but about supply chain hard power.
The industry is hot, but do not lose rationality. After all, there are no shortcuts in the retail industry.


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