Selling 200 million buckets in 9 years, why can Shizuren hold onto its basic market of spicy and sour noodles?

After the viral success of the music video for the collaborative single "The Storyteller" by Silence Wang and Song Yuqi, its cinematic narrative of doomsday escape and zombie-infested cities resonated deeply with a large audience. The tragic ending, where the male protagonist willingly mutates to protect the female lead, leaving her all alone, brought many viewers to tears.

The traffic dividend translated into commercial gains, once again bringing Shizuren back into the spotlight for a vast number of young consumers.

Wanwan, a college student, is one of the viewers who became a fan after watching the music video and developed a favorable impression of Song Yuqi. Noticing that Song is the brand ambassador for the instant food brand Shizuren, Wanwan immediately placed an online order for the brand's spicy and sour noodles. "It's a bit spicy. Shizuren really uses generous ingredients. You can put less of the spicy packet and add more if it's not enough," she said.

When it comes to noodles and vermicelli, spicy and sour noodles are an indispensable category. In recent years, this dish, which combines the flavors of numbing spice, heat, freshness, aroma, sourness, and a refreshing kick, has evolved from a local snack to a nationally renowned specialty, spawning a number of internet-famous instant food brands.

Founded in 2017, Shizuren perfectly caught the explosive growth wave of the spicy and sour noodles industry. Although it entered the market much later than established instant food brands such as Master Kong, Baixiang, and Nanjiecun, it stood out thanks to its hit products, differentiated product system with six ingredient packets, and refined online marketing. The brand has maintained an annual revenue growth rate of 20%-30% for years, exceeded 1 billion yuan in sales in 2023, and has now sold over 200 million barrels of spicy and sour noodles, securing its position as a top player in the spicy and sour noodles niche market.

However, in this continuously expanding market, as online traffic dividends gradually diminish and more players enter the industry, Shizuren—once famous for its viral single product—has now reached a critical juncture with mounting growth pressure.

Young People Fall in Love with "Slurping Noodles"

Yanjie, who just graduated from college, has actually been a loyal fan of Shizuren for a long time. This preference dates back to her high school years, to the after-school moments filled with the aroma of spicy and sour noodles.

Every Sunday afternoon, there was a rare period of free time before evening self-study—an unspoken exclusive relaxation time for Yanjie and her best friend. They would always arrive at school early, walk to a snack shop about a kilometer off campus, order a bowl of spicy and sour noodles or cross-bridge rice noodles, and chat while eating the hot food, sharing the little things they had kept to themselves during the week.

As the time to return to school drew near, Yanjie and her friend would stop by the small street-side shop near the campus to stock up on a few barrels of Shizuren spicy and sour noodles and offal vermicelli, saving them as a special treat after evening self-study ended.

"I remembered this brand the first time I saw it. I couldn't believe there was a brand called 'Cannibal' (later I learned the brand name is Shizuren). It was novel and memorable," Yanjie said. What really convinced her to place an order was the overwhelming food mukbang content from KOLs.

"I came across videos of Shizuren online. The brand's spicy and sour instant vermicelli products in various packages looked incredibly tempting in the close-up shots and vivid descriptions of food mukbangs," Yanjie recalled.

In fact, influencer marketing has always been a fixed marketing strategy for Shizuren. Every time the brand launches a new product, supporting KOL promotion content goes live simultaneously, continuously penetrating young consumer groups.

Beyond traffic, the brand's long-term ability to retain young people relies more on the differentiated product advantages it built in its early days.

In 2018, Shizuren's signature classic spicy and sour noodles were launched, pioneering the configuration of "six ingredient packets in one barrel". The product only needs to be soaked in hot water to be ready to eat, maximally replicating the flavor of dine-in noodles at offline stores. The rich and generous ingredients bring consumers a strong sense of satisfaction.

That same year, the global spicy and sour noodles market grew by an impressive 113%, and 2018 was widely recognized in the industry as "the breakout year for spicy and sour noodles". Shizuren precisely caught the rising wave of the category.

Figure / Shizuren's official Tmall store

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and the offline real economy suffered a full-scale impact: cinemas were completely closed, chain restaurants shut down extensively, the aviation industry fell into a survival crisis, and offline retail businesses collectively faced a downturn. In contrast, the convenient instant food sector ushered in a window of counter-trend growth, as home confinement and dining restrictions created a large amount of new demand.

Seizing the industry dividend, Shizuren continued to increase investment in online channels. It not only established its own professional live streaming team but also deeply collaborated with top influencers across all platforms. In the same year, the brand completed a multi-million-yuan Series A financing led by Zonhui Capital, and subsequently appeared in the live streams of influencers such as Li Jiaqi and Crazy Little Yangge, leading to a simultaneous surge in exposure and sales.

By catering to the taste preferences of young people, making spiciness the core of its products, and combining multiple labels such as "internet-famous hit", "six ingredient packets", "fresh with no additives", and "non-fried", along with eye-catching barrel packaging, Shizuren attracted students who were prohibited from using high-power kitchen appliances in dormitories and office workers who had no time to cook. The brand successfully carved out a niche in the highly homogeneous instant food market.

Thus, relying on short-video platform marketing and hit flavor strategies, Shizuren successfully captured a generation of young consumers and secured a position in the first tier of the spicy and sour noodles market.

Figure / Shizuren's official Weibo account

Hidden Risks on the Path of Expansion

Unlike many first-generation internet-famous brands that rely on online traffic, Shizuren's founder Seng Lei keenly recognized the short lifecycle of internet-famous food products. Therefore, while the brand's online reputation was rising, he began to layout offline channels.

From the perspective of distributor Li Fan, Shizuren, which is deeply loved by young people, focuses on two core special channels: campuses and communities.

Li Fan revealed to Frontier of Entrepreneurship that middle school campus stores and community convenience stores are the terminal scenarios with the strongest sales performance for Shizuren. "A single middle school campus store can stably sell more than 300 boxes per month, with a smooth reorder rhythm. The loss rate of barrel instant food is extremely low, and the channel operation risk is small," he said.

After visiting multiple offline terminals in Hebei Province, Frontier of Entrepreneurship found that Shizuren's barrel instant food products are almost always displayed on the shelves of local supermarkets, community grocery stores, and campus convenience stores, large and small.

Figure / Shizuren products on store shelves

Public information shows that after nearly a decade of channel development, Shizuren's products now cover more than 200 cities and over 400,000 offline sales outlets across China, and the brand has long supplied private-label product lines for Costco and Walmart's Fresh.

As early as six years ago, the brand continued to expand its product portfolio based on its signature spicy and sour noodles, successively launching products such as offal vermicelli, clams vermicelli, snail rice noodles, self-heating hot pot, self-heating meals, and crispy noodles. It even introduced braised snacks such as marinated chicken feet, building a full-scenario convenient instant food matrix. However, the sales structure at offline terminals still shows obvious imbalances.

After on-site visits to offline supermarkets, community convenience stores, and other terminal channels, Frontier of Entrepreneurship found that although Shizuren has a very wide offline distribution, the core shelf displays and promoted hit products are still concentrated on its two main products: classic spicy and sour noodles and offal vermicelli.

Online e-commerce and live streaming channels also show a clear gap between products: new products launched later by the brand, such as snail rice noodles, rice noodles, and braised snacks like marinated chicken feet, have far lower market sales and user repurchase rates than its signature spicy and sour noodles.

It is clear that even today, spicy and sour noodles remain the core product driving sales for Shizuren, while other derivative categories cannot match the sales volume and organic consumer repurchase scale of this foundational hit product.

To address this, Shizuren has not only signed popular artists He Luoluo, KUN (Wang Lin), and Song Yuqi to attract young consumers but also continuously invested in its supply chain over the years.

In the production and manufacturing process, Shizuren has established three major production and processing bases across China, all adopting internationally high-standard production management systems. Standardized production processes serve different batches of products, and the factories are also equipped with internationally advanced production technologies such as vermicelli coating processes and aviation freeze-drying technologies.

However, similar to most internet-famous instant food brands, Shizuren continues to face challenges in terms of consumer reputation.

Looking at the review sections of Shizuren's flagship store on JD.com and platforms such as Xiaohongshu, negative feedback like "too spicy", "just so-so", and "only spicy but not flavorful" can be found everywhere.

At the same time, product issues such as the texture of the vermicelli and the quality of the ingredient packets have also continuously sparked consumer controversy.

On platforms such as Black Cat Complaint, there are 359 complaints about Shizuren, many of which involve reports of foreign objects (such as unknown impurities and hair) in products and food spoilage. This reveals that during the rapid expansion of the market, the brand still has shortcomings in supply chain quality control management and after-sales response mechanisms.

Figure / Consumer complaints about Shizuren's spoiled food

On one hand, the brand's channel territory continues to expand; on the other hand, two major problems—over-reliance on a single product and quality control flaws—continue to constrain its development. Under this dual pressure, the long-term growth challenges facing Shizuren have become prominent.

Fierce Competition in the Spicy and Sour Noodles Market

Back in the 1990s, Sichuan Guangyou Potato Industry produced China's first industrially manufactured instant spicy and sour noodles, breaking the traditional habit of only cooking vermicelli. However, due to factors such as technical limitations at the time, the product failed to gain widespread popularity.

It was not until 2015, driven by changes in market demand, that Lixing Food—a company that had been manufacturing processing equipment for sweet potato vermicelli in Tongxu County, Kaifeng City, a well-known sweet potato production area in Henan Province—invested in building the first production line for spicy and sour noodles, marking the beginning of the industry's development.

In that year, although manufacturers such as Master Kong and Baixiang successively launched their own instant spicy and sour noodles products, large-scale spicy and sour noodles brands had not yet emerged in the market.

In 2017, Seng Lei, who had managed multiple internet-famous food products with annual sales of tens of millions of yuan, identified the market opportunity for the spicy and sour noodles category. He entered the market with spicy and sour noodles as his entry point, perfectly catching the industry's growth wave.

Figure / Shizuren's official Tmall store

Over more than a decade, the landscape of the instant food industry has undergone earth-shaking changes. Although the spicy and sour noodles market is still a blue ocean with considerable growth potential, numerous players have entered the market, making competition increasingly fierce.

According to data from the Canliyan Research Institute, the number of consumers of spicy and sour noodles in China exceeded 1.863 billion in 2025, forming a large and active consumer base. Among them, consumers aged 15 to 39 contribute 80% of the total consumption of the category.

Low entry barriers and high homogeneity are inherent pain points in the spicy and sour noodles market, making it difficult for brands to build a solid differentiated competitive moat.

Data from Tianyancha Professional Edition shows that there are currently 39,000 enterprises in China whose names or business scopes include "spicy and sour noodles". In this market alone, Shizuren is in a highly competitive environment surrounded by multiple rivals.

Competitors come from various sectors—offline catering brands such as Haidilao, Xiaolongkan, and Maluoji have extended their product lines to instant food; comprehensive food giants such as Master Kong, Jinmailang, Weilong, and Shuanghui have increased their investment in the sector; snack brands such as Be & Cheery and Three Squirrels have entered the market through cross-sector operations; and emerging instant food brands such as Mo Xiaxian and Self-Heating Hot Pot are also sharing the market.

Looking at the broader convenient vermicelli market, leading snail rice noodles brands such as Weinian (Li Ziqi's company), Haohuanluo, and Xiluohui are also continuously capturing consumer mindshare, squeezing Shiz