OVENSTAR's Ningbo push broke cash flow, shuttering stores and leaving wages owed

OVENSTAR (欧文酵室), a Wenzhou bakery chain founded in 2018, peaked near 100 stores across 温州, 宁波, 余姚 and 平阳. It expanded hard into Ningbo, but the local food producer it partnered with later raised prices and broke the deal, so it switched to shipping from its Wenzhou central kitchen — adding tens of thousands of yuan a month in logistics cost.

From March 2026 wages started arriving late, then from April were held back; some staff quit, leaving stores short-handed. In mid-July stores began quietly closing. Rumours of a '跑路' and unusable card balances spread, and consumers rushed to spend down prepaid balances — each day of concentrated redemption was costing the firm tens of thousands of yuan.

Founder 戴鹏飞 denied fleeing, said he was cooperating with the 商务 and 人社 departments, confirmed both his homes were mortgaged, and laid out a livestream self-rescue: 70% of live-sales revenue to wages, 30% to operations. About ¥1.53M in wages was owed.

By 2026-07-20 nearly 20 stores had reopened, and on 07-16 鹿城区商务局 had summoned the owner. The case turned a growth bet and a supplier default into a cash crunch with wage arrears and a prepaid-card run.