---
title: "Yanjin Shop's Damowang: Category Innovation and Globalization Strategy, How Sesame Sauce Su Maodu Creates Big Flavor x Big Single Product Snacks"
description: "Recently, the author visited many snack food distributors and found that although they represent many products, truly fast-moving products are becoming fewer. The root causes: severe homogenization in the snack market, brands competing on price, insufficient consumer insight, and lack of product innovation; fragmented media with no deterministic communication channels, leaving brands unsure where to spend money; weak control over the upstream supply chain, making brand innovation easily 'choked'. In such a complex and changing environment, brands that can calmly focus on products, marketing, and supply chain are particularly precious, and Yanjin Shop is a good example."
author: "汪海"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2025-03-20"
language: "en"
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# Yanjin Shop's Damowang: Category Innovation and Globalization Strategy, How Sesame Sauce Su Maodu Creates Big Flavor x Big Single Product Snacks

> Recently, the author visited many snack food distributors and found that although they represent many products, truly fast-moving products are becoming fewer. The root causes: severe homogenization in the snack market, brands competing on price, insufficient consumer insight, and lack of product innovation; fragmented media with no deterministic communication channels, leaving brands unsure where to spend money; weak control over the upstream supply chain, making brand innovation easily 'choked'. In such a complex and changing environment, brands that can calmly focus on products, marketing, and supply chain are particularly precious, and Yanjin Shop is a good example.

Recently, the author visited many snack food distributors and found that although they represent many products, truly fast-moving products are becoming fewer. The root causes:
  * Severe homogenization in the snack market, brands competing on price, insufficient consumer insight, and lack of product innovation;
  * Fragmented media with no deterministic communication channels, leaving brands unsure where to spend money;
  * Weak control over the upstream supply chain, making brand innovation easily 'choked'.
**In such a complex and changing environment, brands that can calmly focus on products, marketing, and supply chain are particularly precious, and Yanjin Shop is a good example.** In recent years, Yanjin Shop's revenue and profit have maintained high growth. Behind this, it cannot be separated from its deep research and development of big single products. Regarding how to create big single products, Yanjin Shop's answer is: "Concentrate all forces on researching, developing, and promoting distinctive innovative big single products to maintain growth momentum in today's complex situation."
**The logic behind Yanjin Shop's Damowang's breakout:**
**Innovation to extend category width** With the characteristics of "low calorie, no burden, high satiety", konjac su maodu has rapidly risen in the snack market in recent years, deeply loved by young consumers. According to relevant data, the konjac category market size is about 10 billion yuan, with an average annual compound growth rate far exceeding 20%, attracting more than 30 brands to enter. Although many entrants, few stand out. **Moreover, red-oil spicy flavor has long occupied the mainstream market, with severe homogenization, making it difficult to create a new ceiling for the su maodu category.** Damowang is the first strategic sub-brand after Yanjin Shop proposed the "New Chinese Snack Strategy". With precise market insight and strong R&D innovation capability, Damowang takes the traditional Chinese dietary flavor—"hot pot sesame sauce maodu"—as an entry point, and through a co-branded collaboration with the time-honored Chinese brand Liubiju sesame sauce, launched a konjac su maodu with a rich sesame sauce flavor. Sesame sauce, as a traditional flavor, is loved by food enthusiasts and suitable for all ages. However, in the konjac su maodu category market, sesame sauce flavor is not actually a mainstream flavor, and there are no pioneers in the market. **Yanjin Shop noticed this market gap and, through the endorsement of a traditional time-honored sesame sauce brand, quickly established the sesame sauce flavor mindshare among consumers, creating new market demand.** Once launched, Damowang's sesame sauce su maodu caused a strong reaction in the market. According to Euromonitor data, **in 2024, Yanjin Shop's Damowang sesame sauce su maodu ranked first in national sales.** Now, online monthly sales exceed 20 million bags; offline, it covers more than 10,000 terminal channels, and in many CVS and community stores, its cut-case displays are everywhere, becoming another phenomenal big single product for Yanjin Shop. The hot sales of sesame sauce su maodu undoubtedly verify the feasibility of brand innovation in traditional flavors. On one hand, Damowang interprets the "New Chinese Snack" specifically based on its strong market insight; on the other hand, it breaks the long-standing single-flavor situation of konjac su maodu with an innovative attitude, filling the blank flavor market and opening up category width.
**In addition to strong innovation in flavor, Damowang also puts great effort into marketing.** Through topic fermentation, influencer seeding, and other methods, it continuously amplifies brand voice; through a series of marketing activities such as "Ming Dynasty Time Travel Party, Qixi Matchmaker Office, Damowang Sesame Sauce Mahjong Hall", it shapes Damowang's young and interesting image. In addition, brand development and sales growth cannot be separated from a well-known brand spokesperson. Some time ago, Yanjin Shop officially announced Damowang's brand spokesperson—Lin Yi. As one of the "Three Giants of Overseas Networks", Lin Yi has gained countless fans overseas with his Instagram-style photos. Lin Yi's sunny and energetic image highly matches Damowang's "trendy and fun" tone. Choosing him as spokesperson **not only further narrows the distance with Gen Z consumers but also perfectly represents Damowang's overseas image.**
**From product going global to brand going global**
**Yanjin Shop continues to intensify its globalization strategy layout** The wave of globalization continues to push forward, and going global has become a consensus for many brands. At the just-concluded Two Sessions, Yanjin Shop's chairman Zhang Xuewu proposed: **Promote the leap of Chinese flavors from product going global to brand going global.** Since its inception, Damowang has been an important part of Yanjin Shop's globalization strategy, and last year it began preliminary exploration of overseas markets. It has laid out layouts in Southeast Asia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, the United States, and other markets.
**The road to going global is by no means smooth; regional dietary cultural differences, consumer preferences, and other challenges extremely test a brand's market insight and supply chain strength behind it.** Relying on the experience of building Damowang domestically, Yanjin Shop has also delivered excellent answers on the exam paper of going global. In Southeast Asia, local consumers have low awareness of maodu, and it is rarely consumed in local diets. Relying on the su maodu strategy to open the market would undoubtedly require long-term consumer education, with a very low success rate. Therefore, by combining local dietary characteristics, they made corresponding localization moves, breaking through in multiple aspects such as flavor and texture. In addition, at the beginning of this year, Yanjin Shop also established companies and factories in Southeast Asia.
> In January, Yanjin Shop invested its own funds to set up a wholly-owned overseas subsidiary in Vietnam, Yanjin Food Vietnam Co., Ltd. In February, Yanjin Shop planned to invest 220 million yuan to establish a wholly-owned subsidiary in Thailand and build a production base in Thailand.
**In addition to intensive cultivation in the Southeast Asian market, Damowang also actively explores other international markets.** At this year's Spring Sugar Fair, Damowang will launch "Spicy Konjac Fire Chicken Sauce Flavor". This product co-brands with Samyang, the "originator of fire chicken noodles". Combining the essence of Korean fire chicken sauce's spicy sensation "swicy" with the crispy texture of konjac, it targets young spicy lovers worldwide. Leveraging Samyang's brand momentum, Damowang begins its transformation from a "Chinese hit" to a "global spicy konjac snack brand".
**Yanjin Shop's globalization strategy is not simple trade export, but a dual-track parallel of "localization transformation + supply chain rooting".** The depth of the supply chain determines the height of the brand's going global. The strategic layout of building factories overseas is believed to bring more new vitality to Yanjin Shop.
**Behind the evergreen tree of snack food brands**
**It is actually a firm commitment to long-term downward "rooting"** Competing in the snack market, if it tests the operational and turnover capabilities of chain snack systems, then for snack food brands, it tests their "internal strength". Friends who have visited snack stores know that the most lacking thing in snack stores is good products. What does a good product specifically mean in practice? **First, quality.** For the entire supply chain, the quality of raw materials and brand R&D are the foundation of good products. **Second, price; price is the confidence of good products.** For distributors and retailers, the main factor affecting price is the length of the supply chain, while for brand owners, it is the length of the industry chain. Yanjin Shop's chairman Zhang Xuewu once said: "The snack industry must control the entire industry chain; to make potato chips, go plant potatoes; to make quail egg snacks, go raise quails." It is this "rooting" mindset that always positively influences Yanjin Shop in new product development and exploration. In the early stage of establishing Damowang, Yanjin Shop initially searched for high-quality konjac raw material factories everywhere. At that time, high-quality factories were almost all cooperating with competitors, so Zhang Xuewu had no choice but to lead the team to closely monitor market trends. In 2021, they found that the purchase price of konjac raw materials declined. The price drop, besides some force majeure factors, indicated oversupply in the market. Zhang Xuewu made a prompt decision and decisively extended upstream in konjac to obtain high-quality and reasonably priced raw materials. **"Konjac freedom" undoubtedly gives Damowang full confidence, not only making innovation no longer "choked" but also removing worries on the road to going global.** In the process of incubating another category brand, Danhuang quail eggs, Yanjin Shop also made great efforts in raw materials. It built China's largest quail breeding farm and initiated the first "edible raw" group standard for quail breeding. Based on the advantage of raw material quality, Danhuang's antibiotic-free quail eggs successfully entered the Sam's Club channel. Moreover, the chicken soup flavor Danhuang, with its minimalist ingredients, satisfies most consumers' imagination of healthy snacks. Through market feedback, Yanjin Shop has become more determined to make it another big single product. It is through the accumulation of quality that Yanjin Shop has gained more confidence to move forward in today's era of shrinkage.
**Written at the end** From the sesame sauce flavor breakout to overseas exploration, from co-branding crossovers to supply chain rooting—the success of Yanjin Shop's Damowang is a trio of category innovation, overseas localization insight, and supply chain control. **In this "marathon" of innovation and deep cultivation, Yanjin Shop's Damowang has already taken the lead.** **It is believed that in the future, Yanjin Shop will continue to drive the progress of the snack industry and create more big single products that redefine the industry ceiling.**


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