---
title: "Young People Who Can't Afford Qiaqia Are Willing to Be 'Suckers' for New-Style Roasted Nuts?"
description: "Despite reporting revenue and profit growth in H1 2022, Qiaqia Food's stock price fell sharply, reflecting waning investor confidence. Meanwhile, new-style roasted nut brands like Xueji and Panda Momo are gaining popularity among young consumers, but their high prices and marketing tactics are drawing criticism."
author: "锌刻度"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2022-10-21"
language: "en"
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# Young People Who Can't Afford Qiaqia Are Willing to Be 'Suckers' for New-Style Roasted Nuts?

> Despite reporting revenue and profit growth in H1 2022, Qiaqia Food's stock price fell sharply, reflecting waning investor confidence. Meanwhile, new-style roasted nut brands like Xueji and Panda Momo are gaining popularity among young consumers, but their high prices and marketing tactics are drawing criticism.

Will contemporary young people still buy Qiaqia sunflower seeds?
Qiaqia Food (002557.SZ) released its 2022 semi-annual report. The financial data shows that despite the impact of the pandemic, Qiaqia Food achieved double growth in revenue and net profit in the first half of the year. However, on the day the report was released, Qiaqia Food's stock price quickly fell, hitting the daily limit down intraday. The closing price on the day of the report was 47.5 yuan, a drop of 9.7%.
Subsequently, Qiaqia Food's stock price fluctuated downward. Even with a slight rebound on September 26, when the stock rose 4.91%, it failed to reverse the downward trend. Compared to before the report, Qiaqia Food's stock price has fallen by 13.9%.
As the leading brand in sunflower seeds, Qiaqia has been making efforts in the nuts business in recent years and proposed in 2019 to "become China's No.1 nut brand within five years." However, not only has the capital market become less optimistic, but a new generation of consumers also has more diverse choices.
Especially as many local "new-style roasted nut" brands following the new consumer brand route have emerged and frequently appear on major social platforms, young people's demands for roasted nut brands are also changing.
**01 Frequent Price Hikes: Can Young People No Longer Afford Qiaqia?**
"Qiaqia sunflower seeds have had ups and downs in my heart." On Xiaohongshu, a netizen posted, "Among many sunflower seeds, I've always liked Qiaqia's original flavor... For a while, I felt Qiaqia seeds weren't fragrant enough, half-roasted, so I didn't want to eat them. Later, the problem seemed to improve, and I bought them again. But recently, I bought some that tasted stale, not fresh, so I'm planning to give them up again."
Under this post, many netizens expressed agreement: "I'm the same as you. For years, I bought 4 packs at a time, but later they became half-roasted, so I switched to 2 packs. Now I'm ready to change brands; disappointed." "I also love the original flavor, but I often get the stale-tasting ones." "When they first came out, they were unbeatable. I ate a pack a day, but later the taste got worse, and I never bought them again."
When it comes to sunflower seeds, almost everyone knows Qiaqia. "Qiaqia fragrant sunflower seeds, boiled a hundred times for fragrance." In 1999, an advertisement during prime time on CCTV made Qiaqia famous nationwide. Just the next year, Qiaqia's sales exceeded 100 million yuan. But this brand, which has firmly held the top position in the industry with sunflower seeds, seems to be facing the awkward situation of "hitting the ceiling."
Consumer reviews of Qiaqia
On social platforms like Xiaohongshu and Weibo, consumer reviews of the classic original-flavor sunflower seeds are mixed. Meanwhile, new flavors launched to attract young people, including Sichuan pepper, sea salt ice milk, and tangerine peel, are being criticized by many young people as "too expensive." Especially the "sea salt ice milk" flavor sold at Sam's Club has been directly called a "sunflower seed assassin."
Zhidu noted that the new Qiaqia sea salt ice milk sunflower seeds at Sam's Club are priced at 66.9 yuan for 880g, equivalent to 41.8 yuan per jin (500g). Many netizens said they bought them just to try, but wouldn't repurchase, saying "they're not worth the price."
In fact, despite the price controversy over new flavors, Qiaqia has been frequently raising prices in recent years.
Zhidu found that as early as October 22, 2021, Qiaqia adjusted the ex-factory prices of its sunflower seed series products, as well as pumpkin seeds and small fragrant watermelon seeds, with increases ranging from 8% to 18% for different categories. Less than a year later, on August 24, 2022, Qiaqia Food announced another adjustment to the ex-factory prices of its sunflower seed series, with an overall increase of about 3.8%. This price increase was mainly due to product upgrades that improved product competitiveness, as well as rising costs of raw materials, packaging materials, and energy.
The frequent price hikes have also caused dissatisfaction among consumers, who exclaim, "We can't even afford to crack sunflower seeds anymore."
But even so, from the data, Qiaqia's leading position is unlikely to be shaken in the short term. Even during the pandemic, its sales remain considerable. Zhidu found that on e-commerce platforms, most Qiaqia products still sell over 10,000 units per month. Additionally, according to its financial report, in the first half of 2022, its sunflower seed products achieved operating revenue of 1.844 billion yuan, accounting for 68.86% of total revenue.
However, with declining gross margins and being constrained by its main business, Qiaqia has to explore ways to break through the development bottleneck of its core sunflower seed business. In recent years, it has increased its focus on the nuts business. At the 2019 Qiaqia Nuts Brand Upgrade Conference, Chairman Chen Xianbao stated, "The next decade is a golden period for the nut industry. Qiaqia will become China's No.1 nut brand within five years and achieve global leadership in the nut industry within ten years."
But from the current perspective, Qiaqia's nut products have not made a big splash in the entire track. After all, as iiMedia Research reports show, leading snack brands such as Three Squirrels, Be & Cheery, Bestore, and Qiaqia have all launched small-pack mixed nut products, and the types of nuts are similar, showing a tendency toward homogenization.
**02 New-Style Roasted Nuts: New Favorites of "Roasted Nut Brains" and Capital**
While Qiaqia suffers setbacks in the capital market, local roasted nut brands in many cities are starting to gain popularity, quickly attracting the attention of young consumers and capital.
**The latest news is that on September 15 this year, "Xueji Roasted Nuts" announced the completion of a 600 million yuan Series A financing round, led by Longzhu Capital with participation from Qicheng Capital. The new-style roasted nut brand "Panda Momo" also recently announced the completion of a strategic financing round.**
Zhidu noticed that on platforms like Xiaohongshu, local roasted nut shops from Guiyang, Shandong, Henan, and other places, represented by Xueji Roasted Nuts and Panda Momo, are trying to expand nationwide using the marketing path of new consumer brands.
Among them, Xueji Roasted Nuts, which originated in Jinan, has almost become the "top influencer" among offline roasted nut shops on Xiaohongshu. Many "nut and roasted seed brains" have posted check-in notes. Searching for "Xueji Roasted Nuts" yields nearly 6,000 notes. Its signature products, such as 0531 sunflower seeds, citrus yogurt slices, and chestnuts, have become "regulars" on Xiaohongshu. According to "Finance World," the cumulative exposure of Xueji Roasted Nuts on Xiaohongshu and Douyin has exceeded 700 million times.
Its store expansion pace is also particularly rapid—in the past year, the number of offline stores increased by more than 300. As of the end of August, it has added more than 200 stores this year, with the total number of open stores exceeding 600. The company expects to exceed 1,000 stores by the end of this year and plans to open 4,000 chain stores nationwide in the next five years.
> Panda Momo, founded in early 2021, has become another "dark horse." According to a previous report by 36kr, Panda Momo has signed 70 cooperative stores and plans to open 300 stores by the end of 2022. On platforms like Xiaohongshu, this roasted nut shop with red and white as its main colors appears in various check-in posts, often with titles like "treasure roasted nut shop" and "the leader of fresh roasted nuts."
Zhidu noticed that these new-style roasted nut shops actually share common characteristics. In terms of store decoration and packaging design, unlike traditional roasted nut shops, they lean more toward the style of new consumer brand stores like new tea drinks and new bakeries, with bright colors, exquisite packaging, and eye-catching elements.
More obvious is the product category. In addition to traditional categories like sunflower seeds and peanuts, these new-style roasted nut brands have launched new products such as citrus yogurt slices, sweet and sour dried oranges, milk dates, and ice chestnuts. This is actually no different from the path of new bakeries like Momo Snacks, which mainly featured mochi, tiger skin rolls, small cakes, and various crisps, but innovated on traditional ingredients with new flavors.
If the overall style and products are the foundation for "going viral," then marketing strategy is the fuse for the popularity of new roasted nut brands. Unlike traditional brands that only stay on official Weibo accounts and membership groups, new roasted nut brands invest more on platforms where young people gather, such as Xiaohongshu, and collaborate with various food exploration bloggers. The marketing focus is on the word "fresh," which traditional roasted nut brands like Qiaqia find hard to achieve. For example, Xueji Roasted Nuts writes "Locked fresh at -38°C" on its chestnut packaging, while Panda Momo prints "Fresh, you'll know when you try it" on its boxes...
**However, while young people complain about losing "sunflower seed freedom" due to Qiaqia's price hikes, they seem to be becoming "suckers" for new-style roasted nut brands.**
Xueji Roasted Nuts is jokingly called "Xueji Jewelry Store"
This is because the prices of new-style roasted nut brands are not low. Take Xueji Roasted Nuts' signature products as an example: citrus yogurt slices are priced at 118 yuan/500g, mixed yogurt bits at 279.60 yuan/500g, signature milk dates at 79.60 yuan/500g, and small crispy items as high as 210 yuan/500g.
But is it worth the price? Many review bloggers have already found the OEM factories for some Xueji products and compared the price differences. "All-Weather Tech" once wrote that a blogger showed Xueji's beef jerky at 26.2 yuan per 50g, while the same OEM factory's beef jerky costs only 32 yuan for half a jin (250g).
As a result, many consumers have started voting with their feet and jokingly call Xueji Roasted Nuts "Xueji Jewelry Store" and "Xueji Gold Roasting Shop."
**03 From New Bakeries to New Roasted Nuts: How Long Can the Word "New" Command a Premium?**
The premium is already on the table, but most young people are used to it. In an era where every track leans toward new consumption, young people have become familiar with the routine marketing paths of new consumer brands. However, when faced with new brands hyped by traffic, they may still find it hard to control their desire to check them out.
As on Xiaohongshu, many young people say, "I know Xueji Jewelry Store isn't cheap, but I can't help trying it," or "I've heard so much about it; today I want to see how expensive this roasted nut assassin is."
But it's not hard to imagine how long the "premium" brought by the word "new" can make young people willing to pay.
Perhaps we can see some signals from the development of new bakery brands that became popular earlier.
Before this, with capital support and traffic tactics, new bakery brands like "Momo Snacks" quickly became popular. At that time, on platforms like Xiaohongshu, Weibo, and Dianping, Momo Snacks became a must-visit place in Changsha. Opening Xiaohongshu, many check-in posts about "Momo Snacks" had tens of thousands of likes and favorites, with titles like "divine pastries," "must eat when going to Changsha," and "directly deified," and photos basically showed people returning with full loads, buying different categories by the box.
Capital enthusiasm was also high at one point. Not to mention the leading brands Momo Snacks and Tiger Head Cake Shop quickly obtained financing, but even lesser-known new bakery brands like Wu Susheng, Nanjing Luxi River, and Yuefengtang all either received financing or attracted VC attention in 2021.
However, starting from early 2022, after just over a year of development, these new bakery brands fell from the altar of "capital darlings" and internet-famous shops where consumers queued crazily, entering a cooling-off period for both capital and consumers. Capital quickly left, and consumers lost their "novelty."
According to a previous report by "Lianxian," after Tiger Head Cake Shop began rapid national expansion, single-store sales declined, and its stores in its home base of Changsha are currently losing money. As for Yuefengtang, which focuses on croissants, it has cooled off even more. On major social platforms, there is no shortage of complaints like "Pulling weeds at Yuefengtang, don't ask, ask and you'll regret!" and "Expensive and bad-tasting."
This is not surprising. As an industry insider pointed out, "The sudden rise in popularity of such new brands largely depends on young people who want to check in, including some food exploration bloggers. But a long queue doesn't necessarily mean a high repurchase rate. Long waiting times can raise consumer expectations and reduce the experience. If the taste doesn't meet expectations and the premium is high, consumers may just check in, buy, and forget."
Netizens start looking for cheaper alternatives
Zhidu noticed that on major social media and short-video platforms, many "nut and roasted seed brains" and review bloggers have started looking for "cheaper alternatives" to new roasted nut brands. Among them, a blogger's video titled "Xueji Roasted Nuts' cheaper alternative suppliers" has over 250,000 likes and over 1 million favorites. In the comments, many netizens said, "I think that's not a cheaper alternative; it's the real product without the internet-famous packaging."
So, although the popularity of new-style roasted nut brands is still high, like new bakery brands, "Xueji Roasted Nuts" may eventually face a "cliff-like" cooling-off period. After all, in today's new consumption ecosystem, "capital darlings" often iterate rapidly, seemingly only able to dive into the market to make a quick buck, then leave quietly, handing over their seats.
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