Baiguoyuan said it would educate consumers — the consumers taught back

Baiguoyuan listed in Hong Kong on January 16, 2023 at HK$5.60 a share — China's first listed fruit retailer, market capitalisation around HK$10.3 billion on day one. The pitch was premium: graded fruit, own-brand standards, prices above the street. At the peak at end-2023 the chain ran 6,093 stores, H1 2023 brought ¥6.294 billion of revenue and ¥261 million of profit, and chairman Yu Huicheng spoke of 'educating consumers to maturity' and of 'not pandering to consumers'. The bet was that China would keep trading up on fruit.

The bet broke. FY2024 lost ¥386 million on ¥10.273 billion of revenue; FY2025 lost another ¥317 million as revenue fell 20.4% to ¥8.174 billion. Gross profit fell 21.9% to ¥597 million; H1 2025 took the worst of it, with gross margin at a record-low 5% and a ¥350 million half-year loss before H2 steadied at 10%. 6,093 stores at end-2023, 5,127 a year later, 4,468 by end-2025 — 1,625 doors closed in two years, more than a quarter of the chain. Franchise sales, 72.3% of revenue, fell about 20% and in October 2025 a HK$325 million placement went to paying suppliers and banks.

The pivot reads as a surrender of the old positioning: Baiguoyuan now calls itself the 'expert and leader of high-quality and high-value fruit', ran 22 'good fruit gratitude' promotions in 2025 (25 million orders, over ¥500 million of sales), cut the cost of opening a franchise store from ¥280,000–300,000 to ¥230,000, and is pushing a B2B second curve (direct sales ¥1.191 billion, Shenzhen Bango platform GMV ¥2.38 billion) with 95.3 million members as the base. H2 2025 reopened stores — a net gain of 82 — and management calls 2026 the year of expansion again, aimed at tier-3 cities and below.