BreadTalk lost all 11 Chengdu stores overnight — the cost of its city-franchise model

Singapore's BreadTalk expanded in China through a city-franchise model: one operator held exclusive rights to a whole city, with no sub-franchising below. It peaked at 418 Chinese stores in 2014. The model carried an exit hatch, though — when a city operator leaves and no successor takes over, the brand simply disappears from that city. In 2016–2017 it withdrew from Zhengzhou, Nanchang, Wuhan, Chongqing, Fuzhou, Dalian, Qingdao and Changchun that way.

Chengdu followed in 2025. On June 26 the brand's official Sichuan account posted a stored-value-card refund notice citing 'overall development planning' and store upgrades; by early July all 11 stores had shut at once, and the last one at Tianfu Square was taken over by a rival bakery. The refund phone number listed in the notice was unreachable during working hours. Operator Shenzhen Xinyu told the Southern Metropolis Daily the change was a franchise authorization expiring — normal commercial turnover.

The retreat had long been running: from 418 stores at the 2014 peak to 173 on June 11, 2025 — mostly in Guangdong, Jiangsu and Shanghai — with one new store opened in all of 2025 and a net loss of about 179 Chinese stores over four years. Xi'an in 2021 was the precedent, ending in stranded cards and mutual blame. Around it the bakery industry shuffled hard: 103,000 stores opened in 2024 and 95,000 closed, with supermarket bake-off counters and fresh-baked chains taking the traffic.