The viral "Big Mac" internet sensation raked in over 10 million yuan within just 8 days, with factories being rushed to fulfill orders even in the small hours of the morning, yet its popularity fades out in less than two months.
"Happiness is owning an extra-long egg tart." Spending 16.8 yuan on an egg tart longer than one's arm, taking photos, posting on social media with the caption "lasting forever", has become the most popular consumption ritual in the autumn of 2026.
An extra-long egg tart, about 60 cm long and with a calorie count of over 1000 kcal, has been complained by some netizens as a "calorie bomb" and "tastes like fried dough stick", but all these controversies still cannot stop it from becoming a highly sought-after traffic currency.
Data from social platforms shows that the total exposure of topics related to #ExtraLongEggTart# has exceeded 1 billion, and the platform's paid GMV has exceeded 200 million yuan. The brand's money-absorbing speed is more intuitive: after Bao's Pastry launched the extra-long egg tart on September 20, it sold more than 700,000 copies in 8 days, with revenue exceeding 13 million yuan.
During the peak order explosion period, the supply chain side was also extremely busy. Chen Detian, founder of FrozenBake Cloud, told *Tianxia Wangshang* that at the peak, the factory was once in short supply, with a daily production capacity of 2000 to 3000 boxes. "We were urged to deliver goods by customers as early as 6 a.m., and replied to messages until 2 a.m. in the middle of the night."
But the popularity comes fast and fades fast as well.
After the National Day holiday, the extra-long egg tart has shown signs of cooling down. On October 9, the trending topic "Extra-long egg tarts are gradually removed from shelves" hit the hot search list. According to media reports, the daily sales volume of extra-long egg tarts at a pastry store in Beijing has dropped from more than 500 at the peak to more than 100.
In just two months, the extra-long egg tart has gone through a typical life cycle of internet-famous food. Its rise to fame has nothing to do with taste in essence, but is more like a commercial experiment of "form equals traffic". But when the novelty fades, what exactly can a hit product leave for the industry?
Extra-long egg tarts see explosive orders, some merchants rake in 13 million yuan in 8 days
"The pent-up frustration accumulated by partners in the baking industry finally got a release this autumn," said Chen Detian, founder of FrozenBake Cloud. He said that even before the Mid-Autumn Festival, his factory was still chased by orders from all over the country.
Chen Detian told *Tianxia Wangshang* that FrozenBake Cloud is a B2B platform focusing on baking, coffee and tea drinks. It completed the R&D and mass production of 60cm tart shells back in 2024, but the market feedback was not good at the beginning. Previously, they had helped popularize hit products such as flat croissants, sunflower tarts and Basque burnt cheesecake, whose daily sales could reach hundreds of thousands of yuan.
"We judged that this product has potential, but it just hasn't reached the right time," Chen Detian said. The opportunity came in August this year, when a store in Henan tested the extra-long egg tart, which then became popular all the way through short video dissemination on social media platforms such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu, and queues appeared in front of "Da Yu Ren Jia", a local baking chain brand.
Chain brands followed up quickly. On September 20, Bao's Pastry launched the 60cm extra-long egg tart at a price of 18.9 yuan per piece, selling more than 700,000 copies in 8 days, with single-product revenue exceeding 13 million yuan. With the scale of more than 300 stores, Canton Egg Tart King has a pre-order schedule of up to 4 days in some stores. Dozens of other chain brands including Luxihe, Zhanji, Donggengdao and Qianji also launched the product collectively, with the average price ranging from 16.8 yuan to 19.8 yuan.
FrozenBake Cloud on the supply chain side was also pushed to the center of the heat wave. The merchants who came to place orders are far more than bakeries - bread shops, coffee shops, milk tea shops, buffets, barbecue stalls, convenience stores and other merchants of all sizes came from all directions to purchase. Chen Detian said that after the National Day, some overseas customers from Southeast Asian markets also came to inquire about prices.
According to him, FrozenBake Cloud has 2 self-owned factories and more than 100 cooperative OEMs across the country, with integrated warehousing and distribution. The factory produces frozen raw embryo of extra-long egg tarts. After receiving the tart shells, the stores put them into baguette baking trays, inject egg tart liquid, and bake for about 30 minutes before selling. This "factory prefabrication + in-store fresh baking" model minimizes the entry threshold.
The period from early September to before the Mid-Autumn Festival became the peak season for explosive orders of extra-long egg tarts.
"Orders came from all over the country, and the farthest delivery was to Kashgar, Xinjiang. Customers who bought a lot would purchase 500 to 1000 pieces at a time," Chen Detian said. The orders were fully scheduled before the 15th, and it took 2 to 3 days to deliver, "It's hard for customers to jump the queue."
In just two months, the extra-long egg tart has developed from a trial product in a prefecture-level city store to a supply chain woken up by rush orders, and has become a hot topic with billions of exposures.
A "visible" hit product experiment
During the National Day holiday, in the core business districts, pedestrians were carrying 1-meter-long "giant" packaging boxes, with a super high rate of being looked back at; on Douyin, the number of views related to the topic "extra-long egg tart" was nearly 6 billion, and the popularity spread from bakeries to the entire catering track.
The answer to the huge popularity of extra-long egg tarts may not lie in the taste buds, but in the way it is "seen".
Ordinary round egg tarts are only the size of a palm, while the 60cm extra-long egg tart, no matter held in hand, or taken photos horizontally or vertically in the lens, naturally has a strong visual impact, with a sense of novelty and grass-planting power.
Chen Detian said bluntly: "The core of the extra-long egg tart's huge popularity is not the subversion of taste. The exaggerated long strip shape comes with check-in attributes. After buying it, young people take photos and post them on WeChat Moments and social media, bringing free traffic to offline stores."
He further analyzed that the emotional value contained in the extra-long egg tart makes this product easier to go viral. It targets two needs of "pleasing oneself" and "pleasing others" - buying one to try is to reward oneself, and buying several more to send to relatives and friends is to express affection. In the process of communication, egg tarts are endowed with emotional meanings such as "happiness" and "miss", becoming a low-cost carrier of self-care and care transmission.
And the pictures, videos and talking points generated by one extra-long egg tart consumption also provide materials for the next round of communication, triggering various abstract "meme creation".
Wang Peng, associate researcher at Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, analyzed that this is "a typical epitome of ordinary people obtaining emotional value at low cost at present, which is essentially the expression of small happiness in ordinary life."
The birth of this hit product can be regarded as a typical operation mode of attention economy, and also reveals a change in the innovation logic of the baking industry: making fine adjustments to the size and shape on the basis of classic big hit products, with low R&D cost and shorter cycle, but it can quickly create topics through visual contrast.
"To make internet-famous food, 'novelty and uniqueness' is very important," Chen Detian said. His R&D inspiration comes from marketing planning in all walks of life. The extra-long egg tart transforms a mature dessert into a content-based hit product, and the price of more than ten yuan per piece is just stuck in the psychological range of no hesitation, lowering the threshold for trying new things, and having a broad audience base.
Giant food = traffic password, can the fate of internet-famous products be broken?
Before the emergence of extra-long egg tarts, various kinds of "giant" foods had already detonated the market for many times.
In 2023, Sam's 45cm-high giant instant noodle bucket was sold at 168 yuan and quickly became popular on social media; in the winter of 2024, the 1-meter-long candied hawthorn skewer became a check-in prop. Earlier, 1-meter-long milk candy and 1-meter-long starch sausage also went viral at different times.
Giantization is becoming a tried-and-tested hit formula in the food industry. But the effectiveness boundary of this formula also gives real feedback through the extra-long egg tart.
Shortly after Bao's Pastry launched the extra-long egg tart, it was complained by some consumers for "too little tart liquid". Some netizens reported that after biting open, a large area inside was hollow pastry, with only a thin layer of filling, which tasted dry and hard. The brand then publicly responded that consumers can apply for a refund if they encounter too little tart liquid.
This controversy also exposes the common challenge of the food giantization route. There is a certain contradictory tension between form innovation and taste experience, and internet-famous hit products often prioritize the former.
A greater challenge comes from repurchase rate. From Dirty Croissant to milk skin candied hawthorn skewer, and then to solid mango pomelo sago, these once-popular novel foods have all experienced the curve of rapid rise and fall of popularity. The survey data jointly conducted by iResearch Consulting and Klauray confirms this rule: the repurchase rate of check-in type internet-famous brands is less than 15%, while the repurchase rate of high-quality demand-oriented chain baking brands exceeds 40%.
Chen Detian said that he has a clear judgment on the internet-famous life cycle of the extra-long egg tart.
"I predict this wave of popularity will last at most until the end of October, the overall cycle is two or three months, it is just an internet-famous product," he told *Tianxia Wangshang*. In contrast, the popularity of another big baking hit product, Basque burnt cheesecake, is more lasting, because it has both creativity and good taste. The supply chain side is also continuously developing more flavors and decorations. As an "evergreen tree" in the dessert industry, egg tarts can have explosive potential after shape transformation, but it is difficult to maintain long-term popularity.
At the same time, homogeneous follow-up quickly dilutes the popularity. Many frozen baking factories have quickly completed the R&D and mass production of 60cm extra-long tart shells, supporting standardized fillings, packaging boxes and baking molds, providing one-stop wholesale supply. Chen Detian revealed that the fastest follow-up speed of the production lines of its cooperative factories only takes 3 days: one day for deployment, synchronizing formulas and specifications, proofing and testing, and quickly spreading to the market after passing the inspection.
When chain stores, street stalls and scenic spot shops can all purchase standardized semi-finished products, merchants across the country collectively follow up to launch new products in just ten days, which means that anyone who seizes the traffic window can enter the market, and the more entrants, the faster the sense of scarcity will collapse.
The extra-long egg tart further verifies the short-term logic of "form equals traffic" with its 60cm length, and also shows the limitations of this logic. Whether the internet-famous fate of giant food can be broken depends on whether someone can turn a hit product suitable for checking in and taking photos into a classic product worth repurchasing before the tide of traffic recedes. In Chen Detian's factory, a new round of proofing is in full swing. "The baking industry has taken a short breath, but we still need to find a sustainable breathing point, and more new products are on the way."
This article is from WeChat Official Account "Tianxia Wangshang" (ID: txws_txws), written by Jin Ya, authorized for release by 36Kr.