Frost & Sullivan, in collaboration with LeadLeo Research and Hexun Consulting, released the 'Research Report on Chinese Large Food (A+H) Listed Companies for 2025' | The New Paradigm of Growth in the 1.0 Era of In-Existing Competition

China's consumer industry and market have shifted from the 'race to the bottom' era of incremental expansion to the 'precision farming' era of existing competition, and this consensus is taking shape. Therefore, the existing competition 1.0 stage of China's consumer industry presents very obvious four industrial characteristics - product homogenization, information fragmentation, diversified demand, and emotionalized value. 'Involution' seems to be the best label for the current consumer market, but the real core contradiction lies in the gap between insufficient effective supply and upgraded quality demand. The way to break the growth ice of Chinese consumer brands must truly interpret the innovative implementation of new quality productivity in consumption scenarios and operational scenarios, shift from pursuing speed and efficiency to constructing a quality and sustainable new growth logic, and reshape the new growth momentum of brand development with the new growth paradigm of 'emotional satisfaction + cultural premium + data assets'.

From the current distribution, as of April 30, 2025, there are a total of 188 large food listed companies on the A+H share market in China, covering 19 sub-industries and distributed across 29 provinces (there are a total of 34 provinces in China).

2025 Distribution List of Large Food Listed Companies in China

From 2020 to 2025, the number of large food listed companies increased from 141 to 188, showing an upward trend year by year; however, in 2021, the number increased by 21, in 2022 by 12, in 2023 by 9, in 2024 by 3, and only in 2025 by 2 (as of April 30, 2025), showing a significant slowdown in growth rate.

From the perspective of sub-industries, there are more listed companies in sub-fields with strong livelihood needs and high standardization levels, especially in the dairy track, which ranks among the top both in terms of existing and new business. There are a total of 9 sub-industries with more than 10 listed companies (accounting for 47.37%), indicating diversified development in the food industry. From basic categories to emerging tracks such as leisure and ready-made dishes, all are receiving attention.

From the perspective of regional distribution, there is a huge gap at the head and tail. Shanghai, Guangdong, and Shandong provinces are in the first echelon, with the number of enterprises in these three provinces accounting for 30.85% of the total number of large food listed companies. There are a total of 10 provinces (accounting for 29.41%) with more than 6 listed companies within the region, but there are still 14.7% of provinces without large food-related listed companies.

Source: China Chain Operation Association, Meituan, Frost & Sullivan

In recent years, China's catering industry has shown a strong growth trend, with its revenue showing a fluctuating upward trend. According to data from LeadLeo Research and Frost & Sullivan, in 2023, the total revenue of China's catering industry reached 528.9 billion yuan, achieving a year-on-year increase of 20.4%. Catering enterprises and catering stores, as the main manifestation of market vitality, have played an important role in promoting industry development and meeting consumer needs.

The overall chain rate of China's catering industry shows an upward trend year by year. In 2024, the chain rate of China's catering industry reached 23%, with stable industry concentration. In 2023, the operating income of leading catering enterprises accounted for 7.7% of China's catering revenue, basically the same as the previous year. In terms of business scale, 84% of leading catering enterprises have carried out scale expansion; in terms of business format, 58% of leading catering enterprises have implemented cross-provincial multi-store chain operations.

Source: Official websites of various enterprises, Tmall official website, JD.com official website, LeadLeo Research, Frost & Sullivan

The pet food industry as a whole shows an upward trend, mainly due to the following aspects: (1) The number of pet owners in China is gradually increasing, and the rapid development of the pet economy has driven the scale growth of the pet food industry. With the rapid development of the Chinese economy, the demographic characteristics of aging and low fertility are gradually emerging, resulting in changes in the traditional family structure in China, and the emotional demand is becoming increasingly strong; (2) With pet owners attaching importance to the quality of pet life, the market scale of pet nutrition and health products has grown rapidly. With the continuous acceleration of China's urbanization process, the demand of the younger generation for pets is constantly increasing. 'Family' is the preferred role given to pets by pet owners, who are willing to buy pet supplies and services for pets to improve the quality of pet life. In the future, pet food will maintain a stable growth trend, with the proportion of young pet owners gradually increasing, which is expected to drive the continuous growth of China's pet consumption market scale. With the increasing living standards of the Chinese people, the proportion of young pet owners is gradually increasing. The role positioning of pet owners for pets has changed, and the increase in single pet consumption has driven the overall pet consumption market scale to increase. The single consumption of pet dogs increased from 2,262 yuan in 2020 to 2,961 yuan in 2024, and the single consumption of pet cats increased from 1,818 yuan in 2020 to 2,020 yuan in 2024.

Source: Frost & Sullivan analysis

After experiencing rapid expansion in the past five years, China's soft drink market is entering a stage mainly focused on stability and structural optimization. Generally speaking, the market scale increased from 577.1 billion yuan in 2019 to 1,250.2 billion yuan in 2024, with an average annual compound growth rate of about 16.7%, mainly due to channel penetration and the explosive growth of new-style tea drinks, functional beverages and other sub-categories. Looking ahead to the next five years, with the continuous increase in market base and the maturity of structure, the industry is expected to achieve stable growth at an average annual compound growth rate of about 5.9%.

On the demand side, ready-to-drink tea, energy drinks, and instant coffee have become the main sources of incremental growth in recent years. Brands represented by Yuanqu Forest, Nongfu Spring, Master Kong, and Dongpeng Teiyi have respectively occupied a leading position in the sub-track with core products such as sugar-free bubble tea, ready-to-drink tea drinks, functional sports beverages, and electrolyte water, and continue to consolidate their market position through new product iteration and scenario-based marketing.

Source: Frost & Sullivan analysis

Overall, in the past five years, the market scale of narrow-sense pre-packaged food in China increased from 245.41 billion yuan in 2020 to 484.42 billion yuan in 2024, with an annual compound growth rate of 18.5%. Among them, in the B-end market, it increased from 182.58 billion yuan to 350.92 billion yuan, and its proportion decreased from 74.4% to 72.4%. The main logic behind the reduction in market share includes that C-end consumers rapidly improved their awareness of pre-packaged food during home office and daily life in 2020 - 2022, and their demand for pre-packaged food was comprehensively increased during this time period. After the full liberalization in the following period, due to consumption inertia, they retained this consumption habit; secondly, within the current economic cycle, Chinese consumers' sensitivity to prices has been comprehensively improved. Pre-packaged food has significantly increased its market penetration rate among C-end consumer groups with its price advantage. It is expected that the market scale of narrow-sense pre-packaged food will increase from 574.85 billion yuan to 1,072.48 billion yuan from 2025 to 2029, with an annual compound growth rate of 16.9%. The market penetration rate among C-end consumers will increase from 28.6% to 30.2%.

From the market value as of April 31, 2025, large food listed companies presented an overall trend of 'one superpower and multiple strong players'. Nongfu Spring firmly ranked first (373.687 billion yuan), nearly 140 billion more than the second-ranked Haitian Flavor Industry. Currently, only 9 listed companies have a market value exceeding 100 billion yuan, with Haidilao becoming the 'gatekeeper of 100 billion'. In terms of overall gap, the market value of Unified China (372.83 billion yuan) ranked 20th is only 10% of that of the first-ranked Nongfu Spring, showing a significant gap.

Revenue is the fundamental of an enterprise and also the first indicator indicating the enterprise's scale. Kinglongyu, as the leader, exceeded the second-ranked Wanzhou International by nearly 500 billion yuan, and Wanzhou International exceeded the third-ranked Muyuan Food by nearly 500 billion yuan. The difference among enterprises after that became smaller, but the absolute value is still not small. Currently, there are a total of 6 enterprises with a revenue of over 100 billion yuan; coincidentally, Kinglongyu, ranked first in revenue, and Bright Dairy ranked 20th in revenue also have a gap of nearly ten times (similar to the market value performance). Interestingly, among the top ten in revenue, there are 3 in the pig breeding industry, two of which are even among the top five in revenue, indicating the huge market space in the upstream raw material end and the fierce competition.

If revenue indicates the scale of an enterprise, then net profit represents the profitability of the enterprise, that is, 'real skills'. Different from market value and revenue, the gap between net profits is not particularly large; however, similarly, Muyuan Food (189.25 billion yuan), ranked first, is about ten times that of COFCO Sugar Industry (17.44 billion yuan), ranked 20th. On the other hand, there is a high degree of overlap between net profit-listed enterprises and revenue-listed enterprises, which also reflects that the net profit margin in the large food industry is gradually becoming 'transparent', and cost reduction and efficiency improvement are an unchanging proposition for modern enterprises.