Zunbao Pizza in the South, Big Pizza in the North: The Two Acclaimed Powerhouses in China's Pizza Sector

Zunbao and Big Pizza, the two fellow sufferers in the domestic pizza market, have already ranked top 2 among all local Chinese pizza brands.

Recently, Zhao Zhiqiang, the founder of Big Pizza, hit the trending searches after making inappropriate vulgar remarks publicly.

On the other side, Zunbao Pizza also went viral, as one of its employees shook dandruff onto a pizza, a scene that was extremely disgusting to see.

One brand fails to rein in its boss's loose tongue, the other fails to regulate its employees' improper behavior, neither of which is a good sign.

It is exactly these two viral incidents that made me suddenly realize one thing:

Zunbao and Big Pizza, the two fellow sufferers in the domestic pizza market, have already ranked top 2 among all local Chinese pizza brands.

They have formed a distinct pattern of "Zunbao in the south, Big Pizza in the north".

So when did these two rising stars open so many stores? What kind of business are they actually running?

01

When it comes to Big Pizza, public opinions online are surprisingly consistent.

Some people call it "Zhao Zhiqiang's Carbohydrate Canteen", saying that Big Pizza not only lets customers eat well, but also lets them stay and rest comfortably.

Others joke that the "Western" food it serves might actually refer to food from Shanxi Province in northern China.

At Big Pizza, you can not only eat pizza, but also get mashed potatoes, fried potatoes, ramen, stir-fried noodles, cold noodles, cold buckwheat noodles, udon noodles and lasagna.

That's right, Mr. Zhao is a real man. A real man has more than one side.

Go check Mr. Zhao's social media account, and you will find that "inside and outside the stores is filled with a cheerful atmosphere".

The so-called "happy restaurant" in name only is Pizza Hut, while the real happy restaurant is Big Pizza.

Zhao Zhiqiang was born in Jiamusi in 1973. He borrowed money to open a billiard hall at the age of 18, and earned his first 1 million yuan in just a few years.

In 2002, Zhao Zhiqiang opened the first Big Pizza store near Xizhimen, Beijing.

"Big Pizza", the name sounds quite high-end, but its original English name is literally "Big Pizza", meaning large pizza.

Its business strategy is very simple: all-you-can-eat pizza buffet for only 39 yuan per person.

With this low price, it quickly attracted a large group of students and young consumers.

Do you feel a little strange hearing this?

In 2002, gasoline was only 2 to 3 yuan per liter, and beef was 8 to 9 yuan per jin. Was 39 yuan really a low price at that time?

Here we have to mention an old friend familiar to all Chinese consumers, Pizza Hut.

Consumers today may hardly imagine what status Pizza Hut had back then.

It was not just expensive, it was extremely expensive.

A Seafood Supreme Pizza was sold for 70 yuan, and even if you didn't order expensive items, the per capita consumption could reach 60 to 70 yuan.

At that time, the average monthly salary across the country was just over 1000 yuan.

So why was Big Pizza so popular?

Back when Big Pizza was founded, 39 yuan could only barely let you get a taste of Pizza Hut's products.

But at Big Pizza, you could enjoy unlimited pizza, as well as fried chicken, fries, egg tarts and salad.

You could eat as much as you want, eat till you are full, eat till you are stuffed, walk out holding your stomach, and even get so dizzy from excessive carbohydrate intake that you have to be helped out.

This strategy was extremely successful, especially attracting young groups including students in Beijing, and helped the brand expand its stores rapidly.

Ten years later in 2012, the number of Big Pizza stores exceeded 100. It suddenly accelerated its expansion in 2025, and by January 2026, the number of stores had reached 387, which are mainly distributed in northern markets such as Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and Shandong.

Big Pizza has always focused on directly-operated stores. Its total number of stores is not particularly large, but according to its GMV of the first three quarters of 2025, it ranks only after Pizza Hut and Domino's, making it the No.1 local Chinese pizza brand.

02

In the south, Zunbao's story is also unfolding.

The founder of Zunbao is Luo Gaoxia. Compared with the outgoing, social Mr. Zhao who is almost like a public figure, Boss Luo is a total introvert who rarely appears in public, and his work style is relatively conservative.

In 1998, Luo Gaoxia opened his first store in Shenzhen, named "Little Elephant Pizza", which was later renamed "Zunbao".

At the very beginning, Zunbao's model was to learn from Pizza Hut, positioning itself as a large comprehensive Western food restaurant.

Its early stores were all 500 to 1000 square meters large, with a very long product line covering pizza, pasta, drinks and snacks, a huge variety of products.

But Pizza Hut mainly runs directly-operated stores, while Zunbao adopted the franchise model at first.

As a result, the operation of large stores was too complicated, the headquarters gradually lost control, and "quality control problems" soon emerged.

Around 2009, in order to strengthen its control over stores, Zunbao changed its franchise model to full direct operation, and transformed large stores into small ones. Its menu was also concentrated on pizza itself, reducing dine-in services and increasing takeout services.

Previously, large stores were designed for higher average-spend dine-in and group meals, while the new small stores focus on community takeout and daily consumption scenarios.

By 2018, Zunbao, which was all directly operated, had more than 700 stores. Boss Luo thought the time was ripe and pressed the acceleration button.

Zunbao re-opened the franchise system, and now it has more than 3000 stores, making it the domestic pizza brand with the largest number of stores.

Different from Big Pizza which deeply cultivates the northern market, Zunbao's more than 3000 stores are mainly concentrated in southern provinces such as Guangdong, Fujian and Hunan.

The local Chinese pizza market has formed the pattern of "Zunbao in the south, Big Pizza in the north".

03

Then here comes the question: why didn't they follow Pizza Hut's high-end positioning, but instead moved towards the low average-spend track?

This is not so much a deliberate commercial strategy, but more because pizza is inherently a typical mass fast food.

It is mostly a convenient food for people to order to fill their stomachs when they don't have time for a proper meal.

That's why every time the Pentagon works overtime, the number of pizza orders nearby surges.

In most Western countries (except Italy), pizza has always been dominated by takeout, following an affordable positioning.

Take the United States as an example. In 2024, the American fast-food pizza market was worth about 42.1 billion US dollars, of which delivery accounted for 16.9 billion, and in-store pickup accounted for 20.5 billion. The two items together accounted for nearly 90% of the entire market.

You may have noticed that there are always delivery electric bikes parked in front of pizza stores, because pizza is inherently closely connected with takeout services.

Domino's is the most typical example. Since its founding in 1960, it has always focused on takeout, and it still does so today.

What Zunbao is doing now is actually following Domino's path.

Big Pizza is a bit like the early Pizza Hut in the United States, an affordable restaurant for group meals that also offers all-you-can-eat lunch buffets.

But later, Pizza Hut in the United States also closed a large number of dine-in stores and transformed into the takeout market.

The domestic pizza market in China is also increasingly moving towards takeout and fast food.

In 2025, more than half of the revenue of all pizza stores nationwide came from takeout; in first-tier cities, Domino's takeout sales accounted for as high as 73.7% of its total revenue.

From this perspective, Big Pizza's current model is facing huge challenges.

Back in the early days, consumers thought its 39-yuan buffet was very cheap; now the price has risen to 79 yuan, and consumers begin to think it is expensive instead.

This is precisely because today it is facing fierce competition from countless takeout pizza brands.

Big Pizza's real competitor is not another Big Pizza, but those small stores and takeout services.

The cheaper the takeout pizza is, the more Big Pizza has to make consumers feel its value, and the more it cannot raise its price.

As a result, it can only cut costs, for example, by adding more carbohydrate-rich ingredients.

But the problem is that carbohydrates are not rare at all, and they make people feel full very quickly, making it hard for consumers to feel the value for money.

Netizens complained that Big Pizza has too many carbohydrates, joking that "even a monk could eat a full meal there without breaking his vegetarian precepts".

Zhao Zhiqiang replied: "A monk eating Big Pizza won't break his precepts, but you break your precepts as soon as I see your photo".

No one knows if the monk broke the precept, but Mr. Zhao obviously lost his cool.

The reason why he lost his temper is exactly that the public criticism directly hit the dilemma he is facing now.

04

Zunbao also has its own typical problems.

An employee of a Zunbao franchise store shook dandruff onto a pizza, and was detained for 7 days by the public security authority.

In my opinion, this incident exposed an old problem, which is the brand control over franchise stores.

Back then, Boss Luo suspended the franchise system for 8 years exactly because of this kind of quality control problem.

But people can never escape their own destiny. Now the stores have become smaller, but the management difficulty has not disappeared.

Zunbao now has more than 3000 stores, half of which are franchise stores.

This means that quality control and staff training will be a long-term challenge for the brand.

Moreover, Big Pizza may also try to open small stores in the future.

At that time, the "north-south war" in the domestic pizza industry is very likely to break out.

05

But all in all, it is actually a good thing that pizza has developed from the high-end Western food it used to be to the cheap fast food we see today.

Back in our school days, having a meal at Pizza Hut was such a happy experience.

But today, pizza is just a casual work meal we order when we are busy. We don't need to save money for it, we don't need to wait for our birthday, and we don't have to gather several friends to eat it together.

This is almost unimaginable in the past.

On the one hand, it shows that our life has indeed improved, and we have more and more food choices, so many that pizza even seems a little plain now.

But on the other hand, we are also much busier at work, so busy that sometimes we can't even find time to have a proper meal.

In the past, we were willing to set aside a whole night to eat pizza.

Now we order pizza just to save more time for other work.

So I hope next time you order pizza, you do it because you really want to eat it and enjoy it, not because you are too busy with work to have a proper meal.

References:

Official websites of Pizza Hut and Domino's

Domino's Prospectus

Yum China 2025 Annual Report

National Bureau of Statistics of China

Big Pizza's Hong Kong Stock Exchange IPO: New Changes in China's Pizza Market   21st Century Business Herald

The Western Food Enlightenment for the Post-90s Generation, Which Is Even Forgotten When We Order Takeout   New Weekly

Leading American Catering Brands Are Cooperating With Chinese Partners Intensively   Huashang Taolue

Luo Gaoxia, Founder of Zunbao Pizza: Plans to Transform 3000 Franchise Stores Within 3 Years   Consumer Research Institute

It Turns Out That the Second Largest Pizza Brand in China After Pizza Hut Is This One   Consumer Events

Strive to Be the No.1 Pizza Brand in China -- Exclusive Interview With Zhao Zhiqiang, Founder and CEO of Big Pizza   China Association of Cooperative Trade Enterprises

Big Pizza Aims to Be the "First Buffet Pizza Listed Company", Its Ambition of Thousands of Stores Faces Three Major Challenges   Bohu Finance

How Does the 79-yuan All-You-Can-Eat Pizza Buffet Achieve a Monthly Revenue of 800,000 Yuan Per Store?   Red Meal Network

Pizza Hut Turns Over a Lot of Dough in Chinese Debut   Los Angeles Times

Hot Pizza Market: Some Brands Lose Money for Three Consecutive Years, Others Expand to 2500 Stores   Catering Boss Internal Reference

24 Years of Market Cultivation Opened Thousands of Stores, Revealing the Business Wisdom of Zunbao Pizza   CNR.cn

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "IC Lab" (ID: InsightPlusClub), written by IC Lab, authorized for release by 36Kr.