The encyclopedia · Strategy & Leadership · Strategic decision · 2020–2025
Liangpin Puzi chased discount snack chains, then posted a ¥160m loss in 2025
Premium snack chain Liangpin Puzi cut prices to chase warehouse stores, then posted a ¥160m loss in 2025 — its first loss since listing had doubled.
Liangpin Puzi (良品铺子) · 2026-01-20
What happened
Liangpin Puzi, founded in 2006 by Yang Hongchun, built a premium snack brand on packaged, outsourced snacks sold through its own high-rent stores. It listed on the A-share market in 2020 with a peak net profit of ¥344 million and ran about 3,293 stores at its 2023 high — the flagship of China's premium snack retail.
Then the discount snack warehouses arrived. Chains like Mingming Henmang (about 20,000 stores by September 2025) and Haoxianglai (over 15,000) stripped out middlemen and sold the same snacks about 25% cheaper than supermarkets. Liangpin Puzi answered with repeated price cuts and price-band adjustments, sacrificing its margin to hold shelf space. The strategy bit: net profit fell 46% in 2023, and 2024 brought the first annual loss of about ¥46 million.
2025 was the collapse of the bet. In nine months revenue fell 24.45% to ¥4.14 billion with a net loss of ¥122 million, and the full-year forecast — announced January 20, 2026 — put the net loss at ¥120–160 million, roughly double 2024. Stores fell from 3,293 in 2023 to 2,227 by the third quarter of 2025, a net cut of over 1,000, with 218 shut in the third quarter alone. Its outsourced-making, high-rent-store model could not match the warehouses' prices.
Why it happened
- Liangpin Puzi answered a structural price war with short-term price cuts, losing the premium margin while the discount warehouses kept undercutting it — a fight it could not win on cost.
- The warehouse model removed the middlemen Liangpin's own premium positioning depended on, pricing identical snacks about 25% below supermarkets, so price-led customers left and the price take fell.
- Repeatedly cutting prices to defend shelf space squeezed gross margin just as store closures cut revenue, turning the segment into a self-feeding loss spiral.
The lesson
A premium price is only worth something if you hold it. Liangpin Puzi cut prices to chase the 量贩 warehouses, lost the margin and the customers, and turned a ¥344m peak profit into a ¥160m loss.
Aftermath
Liangpin Puzi continued closing low-efficiency stores and reworking its channel, while a fight over its controlling stake — an equity-transfer deal with Guangzhou Light Industry and then a Hubei state buyer that fell through amid legal claims — added ownership uncertainty on top of the operating losses. Its share price fell roughly a third from January 2025 to January 2026. The case became a benchmark for how premium snack brands lose when warehouse discounters set the price floor.
Sources
- Futu News — Liangpin Puzi forecasts a maximum loss of ¥160 million for 2025, 2026-01
- Sina Finance / Lanjing — Liangpin Puzi's 2025 loss forecast and the price war, 2026-01-20
- Tencent News / Dawang — Four years from profit peak to a widening loss, how Liangpin Puzi untwists, 2026-01-29
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