In recent years, many distributors of alcoholic beverages and food have been experiencing the same pressure: slowing baijiu sales, plateauing growth in traditional beverages, and channel adjustments by some strong brands... The era of making money by relying on a few big single products is coming to an end. More and more distributors are falling into a real dilemma: they have inventory but no sell-through; they have channels but no profit; they have teams but cannot find new growth directions. The 'heavy assets' accumulated over the years—warehouses, manpower, terminal networks—are being continuously consumed by low-efficiency products. What distributors truly lack today are products that can still generate stable profits, brands that can be operated long-term, and new businesses that can both protect channel profits and support the continuous operation of their teams. On the other side, China's foodservice market is undergoing new changes. Consumers are redefining 'table beverages': not just to satisfy hunger and thirst, but to be healthy, delicious, and of high quality. Especially in China's dietary structure, which is high in oil, salt, and frequent dining, 'de-greasing', 'light burden', and 'healthiness' are becoming new consumer demands. This means that China's foodservice beverage market is ushering in a new round of upgrades. In the future, what truly stays on the table will be big-brand products that combine brand power, product strength, and health attributes. And the first to see this change is the dairy giant Yili. It is understood that Yili has officially established a foodservice business department and is actively recruiting distributors nationwide, focusing on four core scenarios: breakfast, restaurant front-of-house, delivery, and banquets, to create a dedicated product system and operational model for the foodservice channel, opening new growth space for distributors.

Not Just Selling Beverages Yili is Reconstructing the Business Logic of the Foodservice Channel In the past, many brands also operated in the foodservice channel, but the essence was still just selling circulation products through a different channel. Products were not differentiated, channels conflicted with each other, price systems were chaotic, and distributor profits were hard to truly guarantee. The biggest difference in Yili's current foodservice layout is that it is not simply distributing products, but rather re-establishing an independent foodservice operation system around foodservice consumption scenarios. It is understood that Yili has formed a dedicated and professional foodservice service team and established a foodservice-specific product system. Some products are exclusively supplied to the foodservice channel, differentiated from traditional circulation and e-commerce channels, ensuring distributor profit margins and channel order from the source. At the same time, Yili has also established a dedicated management mechanism and market support system under the foodservice model. From product specifications and consumption scenarios to channel operations and terminal services, Yili is reconstructing the entire beverage operation model with foodservice logic. It is worth noting that Yili has not chosen to enter the market 'broadly and vaguely', but rather focuses on four core scenarios, deeply penetrating the breakfast channel, restaurant front-of-house, delivery scenarios, and banquet market. Through different specifications, different tastes, and different product matrices, it precisely matches consumer needs. Behind this, it actually reflects Yili's deeper understanding of the foodservice market: future competition in foodservice beverages will not only be product competition, but also competition across the entire dimension of brand, scenario, experience, and service capability. Many manufacturers focus on 'pressuring inventory' when doing foodservice. What Yili truly wants to do is help distributors build long-term, stable, and sustainable sell-through capabilities. For distributors, what Yili provides is not just a few products, but a business system with profit protection, a market foundation with brand endorsement, operational capabilities with long-term service, and a business model with continuous growth space.

Behind the Four Core Scenarios Lie the Real New Opportunities for Distributors Currently, China's foodservice market remains one of the largest and most active consumption scenarios. And what Yili is entering is precisely the 'meal-matching dairy beverage' track, which has long been neglected but has huge potential.

First, the breakfast channel. Relevant data shows that China's breakfast market size has exceeded 2 trillion yuan, with an annual growth rate steadily maintained at around 7%. There are an estimated 1.4 million breakfast stores nationwide, with relatively high output per store and large business volume. Behind these numbers is a trillion-level rigid demand market that continues to grow. Whether it's traditional breakfast shops, street-side stores, breakfast carts, or chain breakfast systems, the breakfast scenario naturally has rigid demand, high frequency, and high repurchase consumption attributes, and beverages account for a relatively high proportion of single consumption. Among them, dairy products and soy products are becoming one of the most core growth directions in the breakfast market. Touphao Research Institute further predicts that the soy beverage market size will reach 35.5 billion yuan by 2026, with a compound annual growth rate expected to remain at a high of 12.7%. But this growth hotbed still has obvious market gaps, and there is a lack of national brands.

  • On the one hand, the market has long been dominated by local brands, with many brands still stuck in regional, small-scale operations, with limited channel reach;
  • On the other hand, product homogenization is serious, and there is a lack of real differentiation in formula, process, and consumption experience. In this case, the entire category still has huge room for upgrade in branding, standardization, supply chain capability, and product innovation. And Yili has clearly seen this opportunity first. For the breakfast scenario, Yili's plant-based brand, Zhixuan, has launched self-standing bag breakfast soy milk products, including red date whole soy milk beverage and whole soy ground soy milk beverage, further increasing its presence in the breakfast soy milk track. Compared with traditional breakfast soy drinks, these products clearly emphasize 'breakfast suitability': they support both room temperature storage and hot water heating, meeting the efficiency needs of breakfast stores while also catering to commuters' needs for nutrition, convenience, and taste experience. At the same time, Yili is also bringing its capabilities in raw materials, processes, and R&D into the breakfast channel. Product packaging shows that the two products use Xinjiang Hetian jujube and high-quality soybeans from a demonstration farm in Heilongjiang Province as raw materials, not only strengthening product quality from the source but also making new breakthroughs in production processes. For example, the whole soy ground soy milk beverage adopts a 'whole soy grinding process', using low-temperature grinding with skin, high-temperature steaming to soften dietary fiber, and secondary grinding, achieving a soy protein yield of 99.5%, far higher than the industry average. Each bag of Zhixuan self-standing bag soy milk contains 3.75g of high-quality plant protein, 0 trans fat, and 0 cholesterol, better matching current consumers' demand for a 'healthy breakfast'. At the same time, products like Yousuanru are also continuously upgrading for the breakfast scenario. Yili Yousuanru has launched original, strawberry, and blueberry flavors, using high-quality milk sources and scientific juice ratios to create a 'moderately sweet and sour, smooth and delicious' taste experience, better suited for breakfast scenarios. Among them, the strawberry fruit pulp flavor offers a chewy and rich fruit aroma experience, while the blueberry flavor has a 'bursting' sensation, meeting the taste needs of different consumers. It can be seen that Yili is not simply moving original products into the foodservice channel, but truly redefining products around different consumer groups, different consumption times, and different foodservice scenarios.

Second, the restaurant front-of-house. Currently, there are more than 6.5 million restaurant front-of-house stores nationwide. The biggest characteristics of this market are: high degree of intensive cultivation and direct operation, accounting for more than 70%; low output per store; short service cycles; small terminal inventory; large market investment; and extremely high requirements for brand power and service capability. The restaurant front-of-house is essentially the most direct consumer experience field, and it is also a typical 'high-density service-oriented market', requiring not only brand power but also continuous distribution, display, sell-through, and maintenance capabilities. This is precisely where many small brands find it hardest to break through. Currently, in the foodservice channel, glass bottles and paper packaging are relatively mature and are the mainstream product packaging forms, with main categories being beer, carbonated drinks, juice, plant protein, and dairy beverages. Yili's product design for foodservice this time is also clearly different from traditional circulation products. Whether it's the large-format bottle of Changyi Double Pomelo or the house-shaped packaging of Ambrosial, both essentially strengthen the 'table attribute'. On the one hand, they are more suitable for multi-person dining, sharing, and meal-matching consumption scenarios; on the other hand, they also better meet the current foodservice channel's demand for 'quality' and 'table presence', especially in heavy-taste scenarios like hot pot, barbecue, and gatherings, where 'refreshing', 'de-greasing', and 'light burden' are becoming new consumer beverage selection logic. Among them, Changyi Double Pomelo focuses on the 'de-greasing and refreshing meal-matching' scenario, with specifications of 100ml, 320ml, and 980ml, adapting to different foodservice consumption needs, mainly solving the burden after high-oil, high-salt diets, and reducing the burden on the intestines. And Ambrosial yogurt beverage, covering 300ml, 458ml, and 919ml, focuses on scenarios like gatherings and drinking, strengthening the consumer perception of 'nourishing and protecting the stomach'. Behind this, it actually reflects the change in consumer demand: in the past, people drank beverages for 'good taste'; now more and more people are paying attention to 'whether it feels comfortable after drinking'. And this change is also driving China's foodservice beverages into the 'quality era'.

Third, the delivery market. Nowadays, delivery has become one of the largest consumption scenarios in China. Data shows that the delivery beverage market share is about 40 billion yuan (excluding ready-to-drink stores), and in 2024, the number of delivery orders exceeded 30 billion, with products priced at 1 yuan still being mainstream. In the past, delivery beverages were more about 'order-filling logic'; in the future, they will gradually move towards 'functional matching logic', especially in delivery consumption scenarios with heavy oil, heavy spice, and high salt, where consumer demand for 'de-greasing' and 'light burden' beverages is rapidly increasing. In response to this trend, Yili has launched 100ml Changyi Double Pomelo and other delivery-customized products, mainly solving the meal-matching problem in high-salt, high-oil delivery scenarios. The 100ml specification is not only more suitable for the 'single-person meal' scenario in delivery but also better matches the low-threshold, high-matching-rate consumption characteristics of the delivery channel.

Fourth, the banquet market. In the nearly 45 billion yuan (excluding alcohol) banquet market, changes are equally obvious. In the past, banquets competed on 'liveliness', and banquet beverages were mainly carbonated drinks; now more and more people are pursuing 'quality', and big-brand, high-quality, healthy beverages are becoming the new mainstream in China's banquet market. Yili's large-format Changyi and foodservice Yousuanru products are entering scenarios like weddings, gatherings, and village banquets, becoming the first choice in many banquet scenarios. The large packaging design is not only more suitable for multi-person sharing but also further strengthens the 'quality expression' in banquet scenarios.

For terminals, brand power means a sense of class;

For consumers, it means a safer and healthier choice. Behind this, it actually reflects an upgrade in Chinese table consumption. And behind the upgrade, there are often new market opportunities.

What Distributors Truly Need Is Never Just Products, but Long-term Certainty What distributors worry about most today is whether products can be done long-term, whether profits can be maintained long-term, whether manufacturers can continue to invest, and whether teams can truly implement services. And this is precisely the important advantage of Yili's foodservice channel layout this time.

First, brand certainty. As the leader of China's dairy industry, Yili has long had strong brand awareness and consumer trust. For foodservice terminals, a big brand means easier entry into stores, easier sell-through, and easier establishment of consumer trust.

Second, quality certainty. As a dairy company that has served the Chinese Olympics for 17 consecutive years and the first food company globally to receive SGS Gold Standard certification, Yili has a complete industrial chain system, its own high-quality milk sources, and continuous R&D capabilities, with multiple core indicators of raw milk exceeding EU standards. From breakfast scenarios to meal-matching scenarios, from de-greasing needs to health needs, what is reflected behind this is Yili's continuous insight into consumption trends and its ability to respond quickly and accurately. This capability also means that Yili can continuously launch new products truly suitable for the foodservice channel.

In addition, service certainty. It is understood that Yili has established a dedicated team, a dedicated operation system, and a long-term market investment mechanism for the foodservice channel this time. For the foodservice channel, service is never an 'add-on', but the core capability that determines sell-through efficiency. From terminal distribution and display maintenance to market operations and sell-through support, Yili is deeply cultivating the foodservice market in a more professional and long-term way. As is well known, the dairy industry itself is an industry with extremely high requirements for supply chain and fulfillment capabilities. And the supply system accumulated by the dairy leader Yili over the years has also become an important underlying advantage for its entry into the foodservice channel.

Finally, profit certainty. Foodservice-exclusive products, channel differentiation, and a complete operation mechanism also largely avoid price involution and channel conflicts. For distributors, only products with profit are worth long-term operation. For them, the biggest risk is not not doing new products, but long-term involvement in low-profit internal friction. And Yili's foodservice channel layout this time is essentially helping distributors find a new growth curve.

Conclusion

Today's foodservice market is undergoing a new round of upgrades. Consumers are redefining 'what is a good table beverage', and distributors are also starting to re-find new businesses that can ride through cycles. And Yili's foodservice channel layout this time is essentially an early positioning in China's 'meal-matching dairy beverage' market under the health trend. As Yili's foodservice product matrix continues to enrich and the four core scenarios continue to deepen, a new opportunity belonging to 'foodservice dairy beverages' is gradually opening up. For distributors looking for new growth, now may be an important window period to lock in the next round of long-term dividends.

Recruitment cooperation QR code