As the year-end market enters a critical phase, many distributors are sensing that Spring Festival consumption is returning to rationality, making stock-up decisions more cautious: inventory pressure, turnover efficiency, sell-through certainty, and profit margins have become core factors they weigh repeatedly in December. But it is precisely at such moments that a brand's 'confidence' in Spring Festival business becomes clear. Recently, Lay's 2026 Spring Festival series new products debuted, including multiple gift packs of various sizes, 'Fortune Bucket' and 'Family Bucket', plus the endorsement of the 'Kung Fu Panda' IP, making the overall assortment more festive and diverse, and clearly strengthening coverage of different Spring Festival scenarios. This has drawn further industry attention to the Lay's brand: Why is Lay's always one of the brands that channels are most willing to bet on in advance during the golden Spring Festival period? This time, we attempt to find answers from three dimensions: industry trends, brand actions, and distributor feedback. Spring Festival Consumption Trends: From 'Gift Box Battle' to 'Scenario Combination Battle' Every year-end, the industry discusses how to fight the Spring Festival battle. From signals released by multiple brands at year-end distributor conferences this year, a consensus is becoming clear: consumer holiday behavior is more dispersed, purchase paths are more fragmented, and brands must capture the initiative in Spring Festival business through more segmented scenarios, more diverse specification combinations, and more flexible channel touchpoints. These changes that have gradually formed over the past few years are further amplified in the 2026 Spring Festival. Multiple scenarios such as returning home, family gatherings, friend get-togethers, and travel during the return trip are superimposed, and the nine-day holiday of the 2026 Spring Festival further extends consumers' action radius; combined with the concentrated emotional release brought by the 'latest Spring Festival', this year's holiday consumption is clearly more elastic and dynamic. For brands, this year's Spring Festival is both a pressure window and an opportunity window. Under diversified scenarios, consumers' demands for Spring Festival snacks have become more 'picky'. People are no longer satisfied with 'buying a gift box', but hope to find more suitable choices in different situations: for sharing, they want sufficient quantity and strong atmosphere; for gifting, they want more dignity and creativity; for self-use, they want more durable and cost-effective options. Meanwhile, emerging channels such as instant retail, snack stores, and membership warehouse stores are gradually becoming important purchase methods. These changes force brands to re-examine their Spring Festival assortment structures. For this reason, multi-category structures are becoming a new competitive advantage for brands during the Spring Festival. Taking Lay's as an example, this year it has more systematically introduced rice crackers and seafood-flavored products into the Spring Festival assortment, forming a more layered product combination with potato chips and fries. Rich categories mean broader flavor coverage, stronger multi-scenario adaptability, and more diversified risks in the Spring Festival assortment. For distributors, this also directly enhances the operability of the assortment. It is precisely the continuous insight into changes in Spring Festival consumption scenarios that helps Lay's maintain a clear and stable direction in its years of Spring Festival investment. 'Eat Lay's, Have Joy': Years of Deep Cultivation Have Formed a Mindshare Advantage From industry observation, Lay's has almost never been absent from the Spring Festival period over the years: from festive visuals and packaging, to content communication layout, to comprehensive offline display deployment, forming a complete and continuous Spring Festival expression. This continuity has gradually given the brand the mindshare of being an 'essential snack gift pack' for the Spring Festival. Lay's has become an indispensable part of consumers' Spring Festival rituals; at the same time, 'Eat Lay's, Have Joy' has become a stable perception. In the 2026 Spring Festival, the early debut of Lay's Spring Festival series products further reflects the continuation of this 'mindshare'. Many distributors say that this year's Spring Festival assortment looks more focused on holiday joy and multi-scenario coverage. Multiple Lay's Spring Festival gift packs of various sizes are suitable for family holiday reunions or carrying home, with sufficient quantity and rich combinations: the 'Fortune Bucket' targets family sharing with a more festive design; the 'Gold Brick Fortune' gift box meets the dignity and sincerity of holiday gifting with a gold-colored design symbolizing good luck; and the 'Family Bucket' creates an obvious 'gathering effect' in multi-person sharing scenarios with its ample size and eye-catching overall design, making it very suitable for lively gatherings like the Spring Festival. At the same time, small single-pack and single-can specifications are retained to meet the needs of on-the-go purchases or immediate tasting by different groups. The overall combination continues the festive atmosphere while ensuring flexible implementation in different Spring Festival scenarios, enhancing the operability of the assortment. This year, Lay's has launched channel-exclusive new flavors for the Spring Festival, maintaining high recognition of festive visuals while adding a unique scarcity label for the channel. Such designs not only allow consumers to quickly catch the 'festive flavor' on the shelves, but also establish exclusive sell-through advantages for distributors in specific channels. Before the official marketing launch, the brand's 'preparations' have already shown up on the market side. It is understood that distributors have completed ordering and stocking of Spring Festival goods in mid-December. Before Spring Festival consumption fully kicks off, Lay's consistently high investment in the Spring Festival period has already raised channel expectations for new products. Some core display positions have begun to be arranged in advance; some distributors revealed that the construction of end-cap displays started during the December warm-up period, building momentum for gift box shelving and Spring Festival material deployment. Confidence for Distributors: Good Products × Good Assortment × Good Display Make Spring Festival Sales Stronger From the distributor's perspective, the core concerns for Spring Festival stocking remain: Will it sell fast? Is the profit enough? Based on feedback from distributor interviews, we can see some consensus judgments emerging:

  1. 'Lay's Spring Festival assortment is one of the most sought-after assortments' Most distributors believe that Lay's Spring Festival assortment is relatively stable, with less post-holiday inventory pressure. At brand meetings, the brand provided them with excellent market case studies for reference, including recommended categories, gift box end-cap strategies, and even guidance on store communication scripts. As one distributor reported: 'Brand, product quality, and terminal presentation are all in the first tier, with reasonable cost-performance, so sell-through is basically not a concern. In addition, Lay's gift box strategy treats gift boxes as regular products, not just for holidays, which I strongly support. Even outside traditional festivals like Spring Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival, gifting needs still exist.'
  2. 'End-cap displays show results immediately, with extremely high display efficiency' High display efficiency also gives distributors more confidence. Several distributors mentioned that Lay's displays are 'natural Spring Festival atmosphere creators'. Around the Spring Festival, Lay's presents a unified display through a highly recognizable festive visual system, including creative designs centered on good luck symbolism, as well as IP-themed expressions of the 'Kung Fu Panda' Spring Festival limited sharing pack, making terminal displays more festive and recognizable, quickly capturing consumer attention. While attracting attention, it also improves the execution efficiency of terminal displays, giving distributors more confidence in conversion.
  3. 'This year's multi-category assortment makes stocking more confident' The multi-category, multi-specification assortment makes it easier to determine stocking quantities. Distributors generally say that this year they have already figured out how to sell: which products are suitable for gifting, which for promotional traffic, which for end-cap displays, and which for family self-use, making the stocking approach clear at once. Fries flavors, rice crackers, and seafood-flavored products are also considered important supplements to the assortment; some distributors say they really need new products to drive sales. One distributor summarized: 'Lay's sells fast during the Spring Festival. Each regional market is different, but one thing is consistent: during the Spring Festival, Lay's is a brand that naturally sells through quickly.' Overall, Lay's products, marketing, assortment combination, and display advantages together form the confidence at the channel level, allowing distributors to 'calculate clearly' when stocking for the Spring Festival and have more confidence in planning, arranging end-cap displays, and promoting sales. This confidence comes not only from the products themselves, but also from the market experience and stable consumer perception that Lay's has accumulated over years in the Spring Festival period. Conclusion In summary, this year's Spring Festival snack market, whether facing economic challenges, consumers' rational choices, or the opportunity window brought by the long holiday and the latest Spring Festival, is placing higher demands on brands. In this context, Lay's, with its years of continuous investment in the Spring Festival period, stable product strength, and multi-specification assortment combination, demonstrates strong product appeal and a relatively clear market direction. From distributor feedback, Lay's advantages not only give them more confidence in stocking, but also make pre-holiday market layout and Spring Festival sell-through more predictable. For channels, understanding trends in advance, grasping scenarios, and reasonably arranging assortments remain key to winning Spring Festival business, and Lay's practice provides effective support for their business.