In the past two years, the hottest topics in the retail circle have been Sam's Club, Hema, Aldi, and Pangdonglai. They queue up, go viral, are studied, dissected, and imitated. Everyone is asking: why do they succeed? But there is one question that has never been answered in detail: who supplies the products on these shelves? Sam's Club's mochi, Hema's Swiss rolls, Aldi's 3.9-yuan sanitary pads, Pangdonglai's 100% juice... The factories that actually make the products, drive down costs, and stabilize quality almost never appear in the spotlight. This information gap is bigger than you think In recent years, we have been in contact with a large number of retail companies and factories. Buyers from top retailers are asking: Is there a high-quality factory for a certain category that can deliver stably, control quality, and cooperate with us on custom development? Factory salespeople are asking: How can we get into Sam's Club? How do we cooperate with Hema's private brands? What are Aldi's standards for selecting suppliers? Both sides are looking, but they can't find each other. The reason is not hard to understand. Factories have exhibitions, 1688, and salespeople, and these channels reach the general market; but the procurement decisions of top retailers follow a different path—internal referrals, word-of-mouth within the circle, and extensions of existing cooperation networks. In other words, your information circulates in the industry, but it may not reach the right people. Industry data shows that in 2024, China's supermarket private brand sales reached 380 billion yuan, with an annual growth rate of 17%. Hema has achieved about 35% of sales from private brands, Sam's Club's Member's Mark contributes nearly 40% of sales with 30% of SKUs, and Pangdonglai's private brand sales have grown 79 times in three years—and are still accelerating. Behind every new SKU project is a supplier search and screening process. But the reality is that this market does not lack factories; it lacks matching efficiency. Retail buyers are not unable to find factories; rather, among thousands of factories, it is difficult to quickly find the one that truly meets their standards. Factories are not without customers, but to knock on the door of top channels, it often depends not on strength but on "knowing the right people." We have sorted out 200+ factories and seen some interesting phenomena Before officially launching the call for submissions, we have already compiled basic information on the first batch of top retail suppliers, including factory names, regions, main categories, and covered channels. The sample is still being updated, but some patterns are beginning to emerge. Snack foods are the highest proportion category. Among the 200 factories, snack foods/nuts/sugar and chocolate factories account for about 32%, and beverages about 23%, together exceeding half. These categories share some common characteristics: consumer loyalty is not high, brand concentration is relatively low, unlike condiments with Haitian or dairy with Yili and Mengniu, and there is more room for innovation in taste and specifications. These characteristics make snack foods naturally suitable for retailers to do channel-exclusive or custom development. Factories are highly concentrated in East China. More than 60% of factories come from East China, including Shandong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shanghai, and Fujian. This roughly matches the industrial belt distribution of China's food industry—Shandong's meat products and composite grains, Zhejiang's dried fruits and seasonings, and Fujian's snacks and seafood are all industrial clusters with historical accumulation. In contrast, the Southwest has only 15 factories, but a closer look at the categories reveals that Yunnan's cold-brew coffee, Guizhou's specialty alcoholic drinks, and Sichuan's traditional foods... They enter top channels not by scale but by the uniqueness endowed by their origin. Origin endorsement may be becoming one of the dimensions that top channels increasingly value when selecting products. Hema involves the largest number of factories. Among the 200 factories, more than 100 have cooperative relationships with Hema. This number is surprising at first glance. After all, in terms of private brand proportion, Sam's Club and Aldi are higher. Sam's Club's Member's Mark has long occupied members' minds, and Aldi's private brand ratio is close to 90%. Essentially, it comes down to different supply chain models. Sam's Club takes the route of selection plus long-term binding. Each SKU is screened layer by layer, and once cooperation is established, it is often exclusive. The supplier circle is narrow but stable; Aldi takes the path of minimalism plus high concentration. With only about 2,000 SKUs, it tends to do long-term exclusive cooperation with very few factories, so the supplier pool is not large. Hema's expansion logic is wide categories, many SKUs, and fast iteration. Its private brands are constantly extending to new categories, requiring the continuous introduction of factories with different backgrounds for testing. Factories that only serve Sam's Club have the highest proportion among all channels. The reasons may vary—some have not yet expanded capacity and resources to other channels, some find Sam's Club's order volume sufficient to support current operations, and it is not ruled out that some factories are subject to certain exclusive supply constraints at the contract level. These are some of the phenomena we observed in the first batch of samples. As the map continues to expand, more complete patterns may truly emerge. Therefore, we are launching the "2026 Top Retail Quality Supplier Directory" information collection, aiming to find more high-quality factories that truly supply top channels such as Sam's Club, Hema, Aldi, Pangdonglai, and Costco, and to establish a screened, trustworthy supplier map. This is not an ordinary directory. What we want to do is to truly connect retailers' product selection needs with factories' supply capabilities—so that retail buyers can find you at the first moment when looking for partner factories; so that your supply capabilities accumulated over the years have the opportunity to be seen by more top channels. What kind of factories are we looking for? If you meet the following conditions, please be sure to contact us:

  • Currently supplying top channels such as Sam's Club, Hema, Aldi, Pangdonglai, Costco, Walmart, Metro, and Ele.me (including OEM, custom development, joint R&D, etc.)
  • Or have a clear intention and capability to enter the above channels, with stable delivery and quality control systems
  • All categories are welcome: food and beverages, daily necessities, fresh produce, personal care, etc. What can you get after joining? Directory inclusion: Be selected for the "2026 Top Retail Quality Supplier Map" and be heavily promoted to the retail industry Resource matching: Your information will enter the core database as a priority reference for top retail buyers seeking partners Industry exposure: Get display opportunities in relevant industry media matrices to break information silos Summit access: Get exclusive discounts on tickets for the "2026 China Private Brand Industry Chain Conference" and have direct dialogue with top retail procurement teams China's retail industry is undergoing a profound transformation. Private brands are no longer the privilege of large enterprises, but an opportunity in which every factory with real supply capabilities can participate. Let good products be seen, and good factories be found. On June 4-5, 2026, in Hangzhou, we will hold the China Private Brand Industry Chain Conference, with retailers accounting for 40% and brands/manufacturing factories accounting for 40%, covering formats such as supermarkets and convenience stores, warehouse membership, discount supermarkets, and instant retail. The event will bring together top channels such as Metro, Dingdong Maicai, RT-Mart, Yonghui, FamilyMart, JD.com, Tianhong, Shizu, and Huiyixuan, as well as procurement decision-makers from 200+ retailers across regions, covering brands and manufacturing factories in all categories including food, beverages, daily chemicals, personal care, and household cleaning. The conference will feature a supply-demand matching zone—retailers bring procurement needs, factories bring R&D capacity, and brands bring custom cooperation demands, creating a win-win for the upstream and downstream of the industry chain.