1.5 Billion in Revenue Breaks Records: Is Youyou Food's Comeback Entirely Thanks to Sam's?

Ask AI · How does Youyou Food achieve revenue breakthroughs through channel transformation?

Produced by | Zhongfang Network

Reviewed by | Li Xiaoyan

“The first stock of pickled pepper chicken claws” Youyou Food recently disclosed its 2025 annual report: this veteran company, which has been deeply involved in the chicken claw track for nearly thirty years, is undergoing a profound transformation from within. The annual report shows that the company achieved an operating revenue of 1.59B yuan for the year, a year-on-year increase of 34.39%; net profit attributable to the parent was 186 million yuan, up 17.94%; basic earnings per share were 0.43 yuan, up 16.22%. The net cash flow from operating activities reached 401 million yuan, a significant increase of 75.47% year-on-year, with a marked improvement in cash flow status. This is the company’s first revenue scale to break through the 1.5 billion yuan mark, with the previous record being 1.22 billion yuan in 2021.

The core driver of this high performance growth comes from a comprehensive breakthrough on the channel side. In the just-passed year, the snack food industry experienced an unprecedented reshuffle of channels. Traditional distribution systems are accelerating their disintegration under the impact of new formats such as mass retail snacks, membership-based supermarkets, and live e-commerce. The snack market has shifted from “channel dominance” to a multi-dimensional competition centered on “scene-based victory.” By 2025, the number of mass retail snack stores in China will increase by over 30% year-on-year to 56k stores, with the total channel scale expected to reach 223.4 billion yuan, and a compound annual growth rate of 77.9% over the past five years. Youyou Food’s channel transformation has just hit this rhythm perfectly.

In July 2024, the company successfully entered the Sam’s Club membership store system, with its new product of boneless duck paws quickly becoming a hit, with monthly sales once exceeding 30 million yuan. Sam’s selection strategy follows the “broad SPU, narrow SKU” principle, choosing a combination of “differentiated, high-quality, cost-effective” products from the perspective of product managers. Youyou, relying on its accumulation in pickling and braising processes, smoothly passed this strict product selection threshold. Subsequently, the company increased efforts to develop emerging channels, fully deploying membership supermarkets, snack mass retail, and live e-commerce, forming a “four-wheel drive” system of coordinated development among traditional channels, membership supermarkets, snack retail, and online e-commerce. In 2025, offline channel revenue reached 56k yuan, a year-on-year increase of 34.35%. Among them, the southeastern region benefited from the new channels, with revenue soaring by 90.4% to 936 million yuan, becoming the largest contributor to annual growth. Online channels also performed well, with revenue up 42.7% to 1.48B yuan. Mass retail snacks and membership supermarkets have become the “core engines” driving the growth of leisure food brands.

As a leader in the domestic pickled pepper chicken claw category, Youyou Food’s core product system is anchored by pickled pepper chicken claws, while also covering diversified categories such as pig skin crystal, pickled pepper bamboo shoots, and dried beans. In 2025, the company’s poultry products (mainly chicken claws) revenue reached 96M yuan, a year-on-year increase of 41.14%, accounting for over 86% of total revenue, with a significant reliance on single products. Notably, in the 2025 annual report, the company changed its previous detailed disclosure of pickled pepper chicken claw single product data, instead consolidating product categories into major groups such as meat products (poultry and livestock) and vegetable products. This adjustment coincides with the timing of the CCTV “3.15” evening show exposing the “bleached chicken claws” scandal, or may be related to the industry’s public opinion environment. From an industry transformation perspective, this adjustment hints at a deeper product logic: although traditional pickled pepper chicken claws are cash cows, they face dual pressures from health trends and public opinion risks. A growth model supported by a single category is no longer sustainable. The key to Youyou Food’s breakthrough lies in driving product upgrades through channel transformation, using new channels to adapt to new categories, and new categories to meet new demands.

Currently, the reconstruction of channels in the leisure food market is far from over. The duopoly in mass retail snacks has been established, with store numbers surpassing 56k, but issues such as declining per-store profitability and longer payback periods for franchisees are gradually emerging. The industry is shifting from “scale competition” to “efficiency competition.” Meanwhile, channels like Sam’s are still expanding rapidly, with an expected over 60 stores in China by the end of 2025. Their positioning of “high quality and cost-effectiveness” is likely to further penetrate. Youyou Food has taken an early position in this round of channel change, gaining a first-mover advantage. However, competition among emerging channels is intensifying—disputes over product selection at Sam’s and price competition in mass retail channels may continue to squeeze profit margins for brands operating within these channels.

From a long-term perspective, the fundamental challenge for Youyou Food still comes from the product side. Pickled pepper chicken claws, as a classic category with a large consumer base, are still highly vigorous, with consumers aged 15-35 accounting for over 70%. However, under the dual drivers of consumption upgrading and health trends, how to revitalize this old brand, how to consolidate the chicken claw’s core market while accelerating the cultivation of a second growth curve, will directly determine the next decade’s ceiling for this veteran pickled pepper chicken claw brand.