Reborn Chicecream Takes the Initiative to Slash Its Own Prices | The Frontline

Author | ZHONG Yixuan 

Zhong Xuegao is "back from the dead" again.

On September 16, Zhong Xuegao participated in the 28th China Ice Cream and Frozen Food Industry Expo and announced the official restart of the brand.

After going through bankruptcy liquidation, Zhong Xuegao has welcomed a new operator. Tianyancha shows that in June this year, Zhong Xuegao Brand Management (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Zhong Xuegao Company) was established, and in August, Changsha Zhong Xuegao Food Co., Ltd., which is wholly owned by it, was established.

Zhong Xuegao Company is 60% owned by natural person WANG Yaqing, and the remaining 40% stake is held by Changsha Hujia Food Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Hujia Food), which is also the parent company of the quick-frozen food brand Royal Tiger Cub. Royal Tiger Cub is a leading quick-frozen food brand, with total channel terminal retail sales exceeding 4 billion yuan in 2025, and more than 100,000 offline retail terminals settled in. Chain channels such as Snacks Busy, Yonghui, Bubugao, and Rainbow are all in-depth channel partners of it.

It is worth noting that the reborn Zhong Xuegao chose to slash its pricing first. The first three flavors of Zhong Xuegao on the market have a suggested retail price of 6.9 yuan per stick for Light Milk, and 7.9 yuan per stick for Velvet Cocoa and Half-Half Chocolate. Compared with the previous retail price of 13 yuan to 20 yuan at terminals, the price is directly cut by half.

These are also the three most classic flavors of Zhong Xuegao. It is understood that the new Zhong Xuegao still cooperates with the former OEMs, and its product name, specification, formula and classic tile shape are basically consistent with the previous ones. The new products are expected to be mass-launched in the fourth quarter. However, 36Kr saw from the packaging bag of the first batch of unlaunched trial products that the shelf life of the new Zhong Xuegao is more than 15 months. In contrast, the previous Zhong Xuegao had a significantly shorter shelf life than other ice creams, with a maximum of 12 months and a minimum of only 90 days, leading to high inventory pressure risks.

Zhong Xuegao after restart

As a core shareholder, will Zhong Xuegao enter the channels that Royal Tiger Cub cooperates with? Relevant person in charge of Zhong Xuegao said that at present, the two sides are equivalent to independent teams operating independently, which is a relationship of financial investment and invested entity. No company-to-company cooperation has been carried out yet. After Zhong Xuegao is launched in the fourth quarter, it will first develop online channels and some offline pilot channels.

However, it is much more difficult for Zhong Xuegao to re-enter offline channels than in the past. The former Zhong Xuegao was expensive and had high gross profit, which naturally attracted distributors to sell its products. A distributor in Beijing once told the media that "the profit of selling one Zhong Xuegao is equivalent to selling one hundred small pudding ice creams".

According to the relevant person in charge of Zhong Xuegao, the current price reduction of Zhong Xuegao adjusts the retail price rather than the ex-factory price, and the ex-factory price of the restarted new products is similar to that of the past. A dairy industry analyst previously dismantled the cost structure of each basic Zhong Xuegao ice cream in an interview with the media, saying that "the average cost is 3 to 5 yuan". For the repriced Zhong Xuegao, how much attraction it has to distributors may depend on whether its product strength can bring repurchases.

And after re-locking the 6-10 yuan price range, what are the advantages of Zhong Xuegao compared with its competitors? The relevant person in charge of Zhong Xuegao did not directly answer this question, but believed that the 6-10 yuan price range has sufficient market space. "We think this scale is large enough, for example, it can accommodate one Zhong Xuegao, or several or even dozens of Zhong Xuegao."

In the past four years, the ice cream category has been in a downward period, and the year-on-year growth rate of peak season sales this year even showed a double-digit decline. Specifically for the 6-10 yuan price range, its market share accounts for about 10% of the total category, but the decline in sales has been narrowing since 2024, and the decline this year is slightly better than the overall category. Compared with other price ranges, the competition in the 6-10 yuan price range may not be the most intense. However, Zhong Xuegao's competitors are far more than veteran ice cream players. A few years later, Adopt A Cow is making milk ice cream, covering multiple segmented price ranges from 3 to 12 yuan. Fresh tea brands such as Bawang Chaji are also entering the ice cream track, as well as the emergence of fresh ice cream brands including Mr. Savage, all seizing its market space.

In addition, at the press conference announcing the restart of Zhong Xuegao, the new CEO CHEN Dacheng also made his official debut. CHEN Dacheng said that he is a post-90s generation with 10 years of experience in food distribution and production, and he is also a food safety popularization blogger with more than one million fans across all platforms.

When asked whether he will build an entrepreneur IP as the CEO of Zhong Xuegao in the future, CHEN Dacheng said that he does self-media as a consumer to share content. "I will not build corporate IP or entrepreneur IP, and my personal account will not have any connection with the enterprise. As for product reviews, I will review whatever consumers ask me to review, but to avoid suspicion, I will not review ice products."

For the just-restarted Zhong Xuegao, what are the new plans and goals?

"The company's short-term goal is to start over, re-appear in public, participate in exhibitions to face the market, and restart all activities." said the relevant person in charge of Zhong Xuegao. At present, this appearance of the new Zhong Xuegao is more like a test of the market response.