Snacks and fast food add categories, scale up? You must think this through before doing it!

Ask AI · How does Jiliu Master achieve the same taste across thousands of stores through standardized equipment?

The more stores you open, the faster you die? Why are these brands doing the opposite!

Category integration is one of the hottest moves in the current snacks and fast-food industry. But whether to “integrate” or “not integrate,” the real-world conditions and implementation paths differ across categories.

At the 2026 China Catering Industry Expo and the 35th HCC Catering Industry Exhibition, partners of WeiNian Group & Yang Yexu, General Manager of the WeiNian New Supply BU; Jiliu Master founder and CEO Yu Kun; Fei Yima Liuzifen joint founder Zhang Qinxian; Chen B Liang Noodle House founder Wang Shaojun; Zhang Cheng, General Manager of Shicui Food Co., Ltd.; and Shang Zihan, General Manager of ShuHai Supply Chain’s Commercial Growth, held an in-depth discussion on the topic of “under category integration, how snacks and fast food can rebuild their operating systems.”

1. Standardization issues should be solved back at the store level

Yang Yexu: Jiliu Master has done over 7,000 stores (Editor’s note: the brand has already officially announced that it has surpassed 8,000). On the path of single-item standardization, you’ve already figured it out. Could you, Mr. Yu, share whether, in this process, there was any step you originally thought would be a bottleneck, but later found wasn’t a problem at all?

Yu Kun: There is. I’d say I’m pretty new to the catering business, and at first the biggest worry I had was how to implement standardization. For example, controlling the oil temperature, and how to unify the portion sizes. Later, many problems were found to have solutions through store-level practice.

Let me give an example. We have a product called “air rice cake.” When it’s served, it needs to be cut into thin slices of 2 centimeters. At first we used a cleaver. Even if a store only did 3,000 yuan in daily sales, after a week the staff’s arms couldn’t lift anymore. We spent more than four years developing a standardized rice-cake machine. Now it’s already upgraded to version 4.0. The operation is very simple: put the rice cake in, and it comes out with a啪啪啪 sound. For many standardized problems like this, we solve them from the store’s perspective.

Opening a Jiliu Master store is super simple now, which is also why we were able to open 3,500 stores last year. In the catering industry, milk tea shops have the highest level of standardization. And I can confidently say that the standardization level of Jiliu Master stores is roughly equal to that of a milk tea shop—that’s the foundation for our rapid expansion.

△ Jiliu Master founder and CEO Yu Kun

Yang Yexu: Then going forward, on the road to national expansion, what key plans and layouts will Jiliu Master focus on?

Yu Kun: In 2026, we’ll focus on three things:

First, end-to-end digital upgrading. Years ago, when I was doing e-commerce, I always had a pain point: store POS uses Meituan, ordering uses Dinghuobao, and the membership system is a mini program—so all the data are fragmented and separated. In the past, we didn’t have the money or time to integrate. This year, we plan to use digital tools to connect all data across the front, middle, and back ends.

Second, continue to deepen the supply chain. Last year, we completed the in-house factory construction for our core products. This year we will continue to adapt downward and connect upward. The end goal is: even if a store still has monthly sales of only 100k yuan, I still want to reduce costs through the supply chain and increase profit from the previous 17k yuan to 20k yuan.

Third, increase brand marketing investment. Before this, we didn’t do brand collaborations. Our private-domain operations and merchandise products were basically blank. Next, the company will allocate a budget and continuously invest in marketing, so that the Jiliu Master brand becomes even more deeply embedded in consumers’ minds.

2. To build a brand long-term, you have to be willing to spend

Yang Yexu: The total number of Fei Yima Liuzifen stores has reached 1,500. You could say you’re a dark horse in the noodle and rice noodle segment. Everyone is very curious: how did you become the No.1 liuzifen catering brand within three years, take down Beijing in six months, and then become popular nationwide within a year?

△ Fei Yima Liuzifen joint founder Zhang Qinxian

Zhang Qinxian: I come from an internet background. I’ve only been in the catering business for three or four years, but personally I really love eating and I also enjoy research. Just now, Mr. Yu mentioned standardization. Before we entered, the liuzifen category already had many brands and stores nationwide. The problem I saw was the lack of standardization.

How do we do it? My thinking is very simple: raise costs and invest heavily. I increased the costs of each step—from raw materials to supervisors, and then to operations. It’s roughly “1:3,” meaning one person serves three stores. If you want to build a brand, you need to burn money early on. Over the course of a year, there’s basically no profit—all the money gets put back into operations. At first I didn’t even know whether that idea was right, but the results turned out pretty smooth. Our partners and franchisees have high recognition of the company, and many things just happened naturally.

Compared with Jiliu Master, our level of standardization isn’t that extreme. So we voluntarily gave up a lot of things. Many standardized ingredients can’t be used, and we also abandoned blind pursuit of scale. We don’t open stores in many places—we protect distance by expanding only, not shrinking. I’d rather make the existing stores that are operating well even better.

Many people think we only really “caught fire” after half a year or a year. Actually, Fei Yima’s development really got better in 2024. By 2025, our total revenue still grew nicely. For stores that met quality control and service standards, their performance in 2025 improved compared with the same period in 2024.

3. Learn from “catering from 15 years ago,” and living longer is more important than opening stores faster

Yang Yexu: Mr. Wang, you’ve shifted from operating a single brand to multiple brands. What specific strategic considerations drove that?

Wang Shaojun: I might be one of the longest-tenured people in this room in terms of years doing catering—I’ve been in the industry for 18 years. In the Hangzhou catering circle, I’d say I’m a bit of an odd one out. I often go against the trend. What our company does has always been relatively non-standard things. When we did “Chen B Liang” in 2018, pre-made dishes and cooking kits were exactly on the updraft, but we didn’t follow. We insisted on cooking one bowl at a time—every day fresh noodles, broth cooked fresh, and the toppings stir-fried in one pot. Even now, I’m still constantly thinking about the future of catering and the direction for ourselves.

Why do we do multiple brands and regionalization? It comes from my understanding of consumer value. I’ve always believed that catering doesn’t have to be fast; it has to last. The foundation for lasting is that the product is good and there’s repeat purchase. If you separate from products and repeat purchase, no matter how fast you go, it’s just a flash in the pan. So we are very down-to-earth with product, building single-store models and multi-store chains.

Last year, I proposed that the company should learn to do “catering from 15 years ago”—no takeout, no discounts, no marketing, and not relying on traffic. Shouldn’t we go back to whether the location is well chosen? Whether the product is tasty? Whether there’s repeat purchase? Whether there’s differentiation? That’s what it looked like over a decade ago. Now many catering brands have moved into shopping malls. With high rent, high commissions, high property fees, and high traffic costs, plus rising labor and raw material costs, competition is getting fiercer and fiercer. In that environment, brands and stores have a hard time making money. Return to the fundamentals: stores must make money.

So we have to find ways to avoid unnecessary costs. Last year, we did a brand called “Wenwu Wang’s Shaobing,” which was an experiment where we didn’t do takeout, didn’t offer discounts, and weakened marketing. Now in Hangzhou we’ve already achieved chain operations. I delivered on the commitment to the team—we truly went back to what it looked like 15 years ago.

I think many people in catering should return to their original intention: deliver great products, great service, and great environments to customers, and then make reasonable money long-term based on that. This is also our company’s core strategy.

Yang Yexu: You’re crossing from a single category into multiple categories. What’s been your biggest challenge during this transition?

Wang Shaojun: I’m a serial catering entrepreneur. I’ve had successes and also failures. I’m more focused on finding a path for personal growth.

When I had just a few stores early on, I learned how to do chains. After building the chain, I learned how to make it stable and solid. After reaching a certain level, I found we had to go back to the single-store model. With the same team and market conditions, a good single-store model has different breakout power. Just like how Jiliu Master can open a few thousand stores in a year—that’s determined by its single-store model. When we run noodle houses, opening dozens in a year is already quite good. Finding the optimal single-store model has fundamental significance for catering enterprises.

I believe whether it’s one brand or multiple brands, regionalization or nationalization, the brand must look for differentiation, find the core of the entire brand, and then gradually补上 weaknesses during subsequent development. Only then can the brand keep living.

4. Category integration can’t go to extremes

Yang Yexu: Shicui serves tens of thousands of stores, and we’ve seen many cases of snack shops expanding categories. I’d like to ask you to share, with concrete examples, how Shicui helps these brands make category integration stable and solid.

△ Zhang Cheng, General Manager of Shicui Food Co., Ltd.

Zhang Cheng: Hello everyone! We mainly serve the small B end, mainly husband-and-wife shops, street shops, and small stalls. We also exchange with franchise brand owners. Currently, the terminal stores we cooperate with long-term are in the hundreds of thousands. Based on today’s topic, I want to share two observations.

First, why snacks and fast food?

Last year, overall growth in China’s catering industry wasn’t high. The main reason was weak growth in traditional Chinese full meals. But the two categories of snacks and fast food are growing very fast. Look at developed countries—for example, in the U.S., fast food accounts for more than 50% of the national catering structure. In Singapore, snack catering’s share also reaches 40%. The model is very mature. In China, however, traditional full meals still dominate, at about 70%, while snacks and fast food are still in a high-speed development stage. From our real-world interactions, we also found that in recent years, many of the businesses with higher survival rates and faster growth are concentrated in the snacks and fast food categories.

Second, how should we view category integration?

Earlier, Professor Yao Zhe also mentioned that category integration has two extremes, both of which are wrong. One is “big integration.” For example, in the past in Beijing, the upscale all-you-can-eat restaurant Golden Leopard had things flying in the air and running on the ground—various categories, and the average ticket price was also high. Under extreme customer filtering, that big integration model simply can’t be sustained, and it eventually closed. The other extreme is “extreme single-item focus.” Even for global giants like McDonald’s and KFC (our group is also in talks with them), they’re no longer relying only on the original hamburgers, fried chicken, fries, and soda. Instead, they have a rotating menu and a fixed menu, continuously introducing new categories.

So, category integration should be assessed rationally. It’s neither building an extreme integration nor clinging to a single item. What you need is a beneficial and efficient integration route.

5. First run the single-store model, then try category integration

Yang Yexu: Mr. Shang, ShuHai serves many snacks and fast food brands. In terms of the supply chain complexity brought by category integration, your experience should be the most direct. Many brands fall into contradictions in the early stage of integration: they need to expand SKUs to satisfy the market while also controlling complexity in the back end. How does ShuHai help brands balance these from the supply chain design side?

Shang Zihan: Let me first talk about my understanding of category integration. ShuHai’s predecessor was Haidilao’s supply chain department. In 2014, it became independent and began operating as its own company. We’ve served many enterprises and also seen many brands attempt category integration but ultimately fail. I’ve summarized a few key points:

First, brand perception is vague. If the categories you integrate are too far apart from the original ones, consumers will have questions: “What exactly does your brand do?” Our suggestion is that category integration should be done by aligning with the original category and customer segment.

Second, operational complexity skyrockets. Category integration means SKUs expand, and both procurement and store operations become more complex. You need to prepare in advance.

Third, the profitability model becomes unbalanced. Many brands today are too focused on chasing traffic. But I strongly agree with Mr. Wang’s point: whether stores make money is the most important. It’s a more reasonable direction to first run the single-store model, and only then do category integration.

△ Shang Zihan, General Manager of ShuHai Supply Chain’s Commercial Growth

So what exactly can ShuHai do to help brands deal with these challenges?

First, on warehousing planning and coordination: nationwide, we have 47 high-standard warehouses and about 30k delivery vehicles. Among them, 50% are self-operated. This year we will also make breakthroughs on self-operated vehicles. Many guests have shared their own warehousing layout. Actually, these can also be handled by professional partners. If companies want to move from regional coverage to national coverage, ShuHai is still very professional.

Second, we also work on procurement coordination. Internally, ShuHai has four companies. Besides the warehousing and logistics that everyone knows well, we also have a strong trading segment. We position ourselves not only as a supply chain company, but as an ecosystem enablement company for catering enterprises. For example, it’s very costly for a single brand to connect with many suppliers. But ShuHai links more than 5,000 suppliers and over 10,000 original-source factories. Through group purchasing, we can help brands reduce procurement costs. Meanwhile, when procurement volume reaches a certain scale, we can waive or reduce brand warehousing fees, further lowering costs.

Then there’s ecosystem coordination. ShuHai’s OWTS system can connect to upstream and downstream data platforms through API integrations. In addition, our AI plan team can predict demand and plan inventory and delivery schedules for brands based on factors like weather, road segments, and business districts, helping improve turnover rate.

Finally, regarding food safety: during category integration or expansion, if brands rely on franchisees doing their own purchasing, control tends to fail and creates food safety risks. ShuHai has built a full-chain online food safety control system—from receiving at the supply chain inbound stage, to picking and delivering from different warehouses. Even delivery drivers must hold health certificates to work. Any issue can be traced online.

6. “Win the hearts, and you win the world”—the key is how you define “the world” and “people’s hearts”

Yang Yexu: No matter whether you ultimately choose to focus or integrate categories, the final competition comes down to operating efficiency and the cost structure. From the front-end output and staff efficiency to the back-end supply chain and cost control—standing at each of your perspectives—what is the most critical lever for rebuilding the operating system in 2026? What must be done correctly?

Shang Zihan: I think the most critical point is building a digital online closed-loop decision system.

Last week, I visited merchants intensively in places like Shenzhen and Fuzhou, and I had a deep realization: many brands still rely on manual experience judgments for purchasing and inventory preparation, which leads to waste and inefficiency. For example, in Fuzhou, there was a fried chicken brand that once had 300 to 400 stores, but it closed all of them two or three years ago. One important reason was weak store management—relying on people to manage inventory easily leads to chaos, and many SKU items close to their expiration dates were not even known about.

So my advice is: first, use a data middle platform to drive management. Many brands use SaaS in the front end and ERP in the back end, with a lot of spreadsheets in between—so the data are fragmented. ShuHai invests significant resources to build the data middle platform and AI capabilities, allowing companies to customize systems and data dashboards from the front end to the back end. All data on store operations and deliveries can be digitized and visualized.

Second, forecasting must rely on ecosystem coordination. We position ourselves as an ecosystem company. Therefore, whenever a brand has any needs, we can provide efficiency improvement solutions. For example, when a brand expands from Shenzhen to East China, the ingredients still need to meet the original requirements—unified bottled water, Hunan rice. That also relies on the supply chain ensuring it all the way.

Finally, on whether to integrate or expand: I think you should still base it on the brand’s own positioning and development plan—think clearly about which approach fits you better, and don’t blindly follow trends. In an age of involution, a better way to survive is alliance cooperation rather than one dominating all. If you keep squeezing down supply chain costs, supply chain companies will also find profits back in other stages, ultimately harming the brand itself. ShuHai insists on serving with self-operated teams—this is to achieve long-term stable win-win in the process of alignment.

Wang Shaojun: I think we still need to go back to organization and talent. Whether it’s projects or development, none of it can be separated from people. At the partner level, you solve issues like corporate strategy and profitability models. Inside the team, you solve issues in middle-platform operations. In the back end, you deal with supply chain partners. It took us many years to build a complete management chain—from top-level, to middle platform, to back end. In 2026, we will continue to increase investment in this organizational system.

Yu Kun: My understanding of “win the hearts, and you win the world” is that the key is how you define “the world” and “people’s hearts.”

“The world” is your target market scope. Jiliu Master was positioned as a national brand from the start, so some actions might seem a bit unbelievable to certain peers. Then you study the “people” in that market—understand their preferences, characteristics, and spending ability—then use products to win their “hearts.”

△ Jiliu Master stores. Image source: Jiliu Master’s official Xiaohongshu account

In the end, it still comes down to product. What is a good product? I’ve summarized nine “good” things.

From the store perspective: easy to sell, easy to make money, easy to operate. For example, we don’t set up a tasting staff position. Because additional headcount adds labor costs that need extra 30k yuan in revenue to cover—so it’s not “good for making money.”

From the consumer perspective: good-looking, good-tasting, and good to share. We put the big deep-fry pot in plain sight. Customers can see everything we do is fried fresh. They can see the process of the rice cake pieces expanding one by one. On one hand, it’s very soothing. On the other, the visual impact captures them. When they taste it, the addictive quality grabs them again, forming spontaneous word-of-mouth.

From the headquarters perspective: easy to replicate, easy to manage, easy to expand. Even if the product is delicious, if it can’t be standardized and replicated at low cost, you can’t achieve the same taste across thousands of stores. Or if the equipment is particularly expensive, it’s not a good product.

The next questions—for example, how to build the operating system, motion/route design, talent system, management standards—are all developed around the “good product,” and finally achieve “win hearts and win the world.”

Zhang Qinxian: Our company keeps changing dynamically. In a year, we might need to adjust 10 or 20 times, continuously optimizing based on real conditions.

First is ongoing iteration at the product level. We’re different from Jiliu Master: we arrange staff in different locations to do tasting work, and each store conducts online daily checks and offline monthly checks. The purpose is to proactively discover problems. I think the role of supervisors in the future isn’t to find problems, but to solve them. Only after problems are solved can they leave.

Second is restrained incubation of new projects—trying new categories. I agree with what Mr. Wang said: go back to what catering used to look like. Nowadays it’s too competitive. Menus are getting more and more complicated—you add this and I add that. How do franchisees protect their profits? Every year, we internally incubate one or two new projects, then start long-term internal testing. We don’t publicize to the outside. Only after the project is tested across multiple stores do we roll it out to the market, and we only collaborate with long-term partners whose philosophies match.

Our company’s partner standards are still quite high. First, I’m very clear about what kind of people I want. Then we continuously filter through one stage after another. The people that pass the filtering will definitely be able to cooperate long-term. Making money isn’t about who makes more; it’s about who can make it for longer.

Zhang Cheng: The key to category integration is to clearly define what to “add” and what not to “add.” The goal of what to add must be clear: increase revenue, increase average order value, and increase add-on order rate. But what must not be added—I summarize it as four points: do not increase store floor area, do not increase staff, do not increase equipment, and do not increase costs.

For all terminal stores doing category integration, including our clients, the logic is to first solve the “no increase” problems, and then solve the “growth” problems. That is, only under the premise that per-square-meter efficiency doesn’t drop, stores don’t expand, the flow lines don’t get messy, and neither staff nor waste increases, then you design how the newly added categories should be integrated, how to schedule the products, and how to arrange staff.

All store operation logic is: sales = number of customers × average order value. Now customer counts are competitive and can’t keep growing, so you can only change the average order value. Category integration, in essence, is the strategy to stabilize or even increase average order value during periods when consumer average spend is under pressure. In an era when demand rises, customers no longer want to spend 30 yuan for just a hamburger; they want to spend 30 yuan for a bundle: “hamburger + fried chicken + soda + fries.” Category integration is meant to solve this.

This article is the transcript of the roundtable forum segment at the “2026 China Catering Industry Expo.” Red餐网 summarized and published it, with slight edits.