It once raised 600 million yuan in financing, and Xue Ji has stepped into the fresh snack sector.

Xueji Roasted Nuts is making a comeback in the fresh snack track.

As a former leading chain enterprise in the roasted nuts sector, Xueji recently officially announced that its new store located at Chaoyang Hopson One in Beijing has started its enclosure construction, and is scheduled to officially open in September. On the basis of the original roasted nuts categories, the new store adds short-shelf-life baked goods such as bread and pastries.

This move is also regarded as Xueji's "response measure" to cope with the wave of fresh snacks. But in the view of Retail Circle, this is more like a belated self-correction — the things that were actively discarded for the sake of scale in the past now need to be picked up again.

The "fresh" background that was diluted by capital

The inherent trait of Xueji has always been "freshness".

Xueji originated from the morning market at Yingxiong Mountain in Jinan in 1992. Its founder Xue Xingzhu set up a frying pan at the morning market and started the business of frying sunflower seeds. At that time, there were no concepts such as "brand" or "business format". As the "popular snack" at that time, roasted nuts were positioned with "sincerity" as the core, which meant frying and selling on the same day with full weight and priority on taste.

In 2002, the first Xueji Roasted Nuts brand store opened at Yingxiong Mountain, officially shifting to chain operation, and the mode of frying and selling on the spot was fully retained. In the following ten years, Xueji took root in Shandong with the people-friendly positioning of bulk roasted nuts. Until 2018, when Internet snack brands such as Three Squirrels and Bestore rose rapidly relying on e-commerce, Xueji launched a comprehensive brand upgrade.

Stores moved from street-side communities to core business districts and shopping centers, and the image changed from down-to-earth grocery stores to bright and exquisite red national trend style; the product structure expanded from single roasted nuts to all-category casual snacks such as nuts, dried fruits and preserved meat; on the supply chain side, a standardized production and warehousing distribution system was built, and products gradually moved to pre-packaging and long-shelf-life mode.

This step was taken very precisely. Xueji broke away from the limitation of regional roasted nut shops and also got the admission ticket of capital.

On September 15, 2022, Xueji Roasted Nuts officially announced the completion of 600 million yuan Series A financing, with investors being Meituan Longzhu and Qicheng Capital. This was also the largest financing in the casual snack track in that year. The financing entity is Shandong Xueji Food Technology Co., Ltd., which was newly registered in January 2022, and the funds are planned to be mainly invested in three major sectors: store expansion, self-owned factory construction and digital system upgrade.

An investor from the investment circle analyzed to Retail Circle that what the investors valued at that time was precisely the brand and chain operation capabilities that Xueji had taken the lead in developing in the traditionally scattered roasted nut industry.

After the financing, Xueji entered a period of rapid expansion. According to public media statistics, the number of Xueji Roasted Nuts stores nationwide was 736 at the end of 2022, increased to 920 at the end of the next year, and exceeded the threshold of 1,000 at the beginning of 2024. Founder Xue Xingzhu even put forward the expansion goal of "4,000 stores in five years", which can be said to be "unmatched in limelight" for a time.

According to the disclosure of the Confucian Businessmen Conference, Xueji Roasted Nuts achieved a revenue scale of 3.2 billion yuan in 2024, with more than 1,200 stores nationwide. Its store density and social exposure of internet-famous products are all ahead of offline chain brands in the same track such as Qiwang Peanut and Lishanghuang, firmly ranking in the first echelon of fresh-made roasted nut chains.

But the cost is also hidden in the expansion.

In order to adapt to the pace of rapid national store opening, Xueji began to accelerate the standardized transformation of products, and the product structure continued to tilt towards long-shelf-life pre-packaged snacks. Internet-famous pre-packaged products such as milk dates and yogurt citrus slices became the label of Xueji in public perception, while the down-to-earth vibe of frying sunflower seeds in the early years was gradually diluted.

From the current perspective, Xueji was originally labeled as "freshly made, honest and fresh". The business model of frying and selling on the spot in Xueji's early years essentially fits the underlying logic of "freshly made and short-shelf-life" of fresh snacks, but in the process of brand capitalization and large-scale expansion, the "fresh" label was actively weakened.

In the view of Retail Circle, Xueji completed the leap from a regional roasted nut shop to a national brand with the support of capital, but the cost of expansion is that it put its original "fresh" advantage in a secondary position. When fresh retail brands such as Jiduquan and Jinlimen have made open-kitchen on-site production and short-shelf-life baked goods the mainstream business model, Xueji's stores still take long-shelf-life nuts, dried fruits and pre-packaged internet-famous snacks as the main sales force.

The launch of the new store format at Chaoyang Hopson One is more like a move to pick up the missed gains, which means Xueji Roasted Nuts picks up the "fresh" capability that has been shelved for many years again, expanding the boundary of on-site production from traditional roasted nuts to short-shelf-life baked pastries.

However, it is not as simple as opening a first store for Xueji to enter the fresh snack track again.

The fresh snack sector has entered an era of fierce competition

Xueji chose to increase its layout in fresh snacks at this point in time, which is backed by the continuous heating up of the track and also the collective anxiety of veteran players.

After several years of market cultivation, fresh snacks have grown from a niche business format to the fastest-growing sub-track in the snack industry. According to data from LeadLeo Research Institute, the domestic fresh snack market size increased from less than 5 billion yuan in 2020 to 18 billion yuan in 2025, with an average annual compound growth rate of over 40%, significantly higher than the overall level of traditional casual snacks.

The survey from iiMedia Research can better illustrate the changes on the consumer side: a total of 78.4% of consumers said that the proportion of fresh snacks in their snack consumption structure has increased significantly or slightly. Short shelf life, less additives, and visible production process are becoming the core demands of the new generation of snack consumption.

The track has long been crowded with players, and each has its own development path.

Now the participants in the track can be roughly divided into three camps. Brands with different origins, with their respective resource endowments, have embarked on differentiated development paths, jointly building a diversified competition pattern.

Native brands are at the forefront. Jinlimen completed its transformation in 2021, and was the first to establish the store paradigm of fresh snacks, focusing on open-kitchen on-site production and self-owned short-shelf-life products, adhering to the direct-sale model; Yili, which originated in Shenyang, expanded fresh snacks based on its roasted nut foundation, with more than 100 stores across the country; Jiduquan, backed by Heise Jingdian, focuses on the characteristics of fresh braised snacks, opened franchising at the end of 2025, and set the store expansion target of 600-1000 stores in 2026; Pumama deeply cultivates the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, establishing regional mental advantage with fresh braised products.

Traditional leading casual snack enterprises are also collectively looking for the second growth curve. The world's first store of "LYFEN Life" under Laiyifen was launched at Wanda Plaza, Wujiaochang, Shanghai in July 2026, taking short-shelf-life baked goods and freshly cut fruits as core categories; Bestore and Three Squirrels test the fresh snack category combination in the form of in-store stores and independent snack halls.

Cross-border entrants are also coming in an endless stream. Juewei Food has opened independent fresh snack pilot stores, and Chayanyuese has incubated Jishi Shangwei to cut into fresh-made snacks; 7-Eleven has launched its own 7 Fresh Snack series, and Hema and Yonghui have expanded their fresh snack category matrix relying on their original fresh short-shelf-life supply chain.

From a global perspective, the number of players in the fresh snack track is already relatively saturated. Native brands have a single-store profit model that has been tested by the market, traditional giants have brand momentum and user base, and cross-border players have their own advantages in traffic, scenarios or cold chain supply chains.

Retail Circle believes that fresh snacks are no longer in the primary stage of single snack, single freezer and single baking, but have evolved into a comprehensive competition of all categories and all scenarios. No single model can dominate the market, and players with different backgrounds have their own advantages and disadvantages. The competitive pattern of the Warring States era has taken shape.

If they want to gain a foothold in such a pattern, veteran snack brands represented by Xueji still have to face considerable tests.

Entering the fresh snack track is an open-book exam

Entering the fresh snack track is actually an open-book exam for veteran roasted nut brands, and the difficulty lies in that even if you know the answer, you may not be able to answer it correctly.

The first and foremost challenge is the high loss caused by short shelf life.

According to the securities firm's research report, the average loss rate of the fresh snack industry remains in the range of 8%-15%, while the loss rate of traditional packaged snacks is only 1%-3%. Xueji's past supply chain system is a national warehousing and distribution network designed for long-shelf-life nuts and roasted nuts; to make fresh snacks, it is necessary to add central kitchens and build a localized cold chain distribution network, which is equivalent to building another complete system outside the original one.

But for Xueji, which already has a scale of 1,000 stores, either choice will undoubtedly increase the load. From this perspective, Xueji's choice to start piloting from Beijing stores and increase investment in baked pastries in the initial stage seems to be the optimal solution.

This also leads to a new exam question: product attractiveness.

From Jiduquan to Jinlimen, and then to Three Squirrels and Juewei Food, the category combination of fresh snacks has long evolved from a single product to a "combination punch", and "roasted nuts + baking + fresh braised snacks" has almost become the industry standard. If you only simply add baked pastries without creating differentiated hit products and store experiences, it will be difficult to stand out in the red ocean market.

The deeper test lies in the operation end.

The operation logic of traditional roasted nut stores is very simple: put goods on shelves, weigh and collect payment, and the skill threshold for employees is not high. But fresh snacks are not like this. During the previous on-site store survey of Retail Circle, it was found that in well-operated fresh snack stores, shop assistants not only need to understand products and be good at introducing them, but also need to be able to attract traffic, shoot videos and hold theme activities, which are essentially "operation-oriented" personnel.

This is not something that can be solved by adding a few more shelves to the original store, but a complete replacement of the entire store operation logic.

Of course, veteran players do not lack opportunities to break through. Xueji's biggest hole card is the procurement bargaining power brought by the scale of 1,000 stores. If it can combine the scale advantage with the refined operation of fresh snacks, optimize costs on the premise of ensuring product freshness, and create cost-effective differentiation, it is not impossible to seize the market gap.

But the scale advantage has never been the decisive factor for fresh snacks. More stores do not mean that consumers will pay for them, and ultimately it will fall back to products and experiences.

What is certain is that the fierce competition of fresh snacks has just kicked off, and the entry of veteran players will only further disrupt the industry pattern. But if Xueji's attempt can be successful, it may become a sample of traditional snack transformation.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Retail Circle", author: Li Da, published with authorization from 36Kr.