This is an English adaptation of a FoodBud historical article originally published on December 20, 2021.
FoodBud noted that three foodservice-adjacent companies announced new financing on the same day: Chuanwazi, Bliss Cake, and Lehe Food.
Lehe operates in a difficult and competitive ingredient supply-chain category. Meituan Longzhu has been placing bets across the sector: beyond Meituan's own Kuailv business, it has also invested in Meicai. This article focuses mainly on Chuanwazi and Bliss Cake.
Chuanwazi's public financing amount was RMB 300 million. Based on industrial and commercial registration changes, the round appears to have been completed in October 2021, with about 8% of equity sold. On that basis, FoodBud estimated Chuanwazi's valuation at about RMB 3.75 billion.
FoodBud estimated Chuanwazi's annual sales at RMB 500-600 million, implying roughly 7x price-to-sales, while noting that the estimate could be corrected if inaccurate.
Chuanwazi was controlled by Grass Green Group. Grass Green's founding partner Xi Gang is chairman of New Hope Dairy, and the broader backing is the New Hope system.
According to Grass Green's own website, the company was formally established on July 6, 2015, as an innovation and entrepreneurship platform jointly initiated by New Hope Group chairman Liu Yonghao, Wang Hang, Xi Gang, and other partners. Grass Green was tasked with New Hope Group's strategic move from enterprise markets toward consumer markets. It had received an initial RMB 1 billion investment and more than RMB 10 billion in investment over the previous two years.
Liu Yonghao is chairman of New Hope. Wang Hang is vice chairman of New Hope and also a founding partner of Hosen Capital.
Grass Green's industrial layout largely extends from New Hope Dairy's business base. Its largest area is cold chain, followed by compound seasonings, with health products and pet food also in the portfolio.
Cold chain remained Grass Green's largest business. Its standout project was Fresh Life. New Hope Liuhe, New Hope Dairy, and Juewei Food all had foundational related-party business ties with Fresh Life, supporting strong growth momentum. The cold-chain business was expanding by acquiring smaller regional companies and integrating them operationally. The key test was integration capability: using central technology support to improve acquired companies' efficiency and expand customer resources.
Fresh Life had more than 200,000 cubic meters of frozen and refrigerated third-party warehouse capacity, more than 4,000 owned refrigerated vehicles, and 22 subsidiaries in provincial-capital cities across China, giving it nationwide urban service capability. FoodBud viewed this as a strong enabling industry, with several core customers underpinning sales and strong capital support, which matters because cold chain is asset-heavy and cash-intensive.
Chuanwazi, Fuhou Food, and Guoniang Food formed the anchor points of Grass Green's second industrial line in compound seasonings. From there, Grass Green was incubating offline foodservice-store businesses, including Shidai Canchuang, though the article viewed those incubated companies as not yet especially successful. Shidai Canchuang was led and controlled by Chuanwazi.
Chuanwazi's PR materials showed that it was moving from its original B2B focus toward the consumer market, including household use. The company was drawing on New Hope Dairy's consumer-market expansion capabilities and packaged-consumer-goods playbook. In the B2B Sichuan-style seasoning market, there are many similar companies in Sichuan and Chongqing, and competition is intense. After a certain point of B2B expansion, Chuanwazi needed new growth markets. Consumer retail is one option, but a company accustomed to B2B business would need a meaningful capability upgrade to make that shift smoothly.
For Grass Green or Chuanwazi, Shidai Canchuang may be a difficult path. Chuanwazi founder Tang Lei started from skewer hotpot and related store businesses before building Chuanwazi's factory and compound-seasoning business. But operating stores well requires different capabilities from operating factories. From the perspective of Grass Green and New Hope's capability set, running factories appears easier than running stores.
Shidai Canchuang's brands were not progressing particularly smoothly. Tang Xiaozhang Boboji was shown as temporarily closed on Dianping, as was another brand, Lai Liang Gen Hotpot. Lei Siniang Egg Pancake & Creative Ice Jelly had only one store in Chengdu; based on its naming and Dianping reviews, FoodBud saw limited prospects. One portfolio brand, Jiumei Chicken Feet, was in a promising category and might break through via franchising, but the store-level business model still had many thresholds to clear.
Based on earlier interviews with Xi Gang, Grass Green wanted to become more like 3G Capital and JAB, and had studied companies such as 3G Capital and Danaher, which are known for industrial M&A. Grass Green was relatively aggressive at the beginning and had spent recent years digesting earlier moves, while continuing to move forward steadily.
FoodBud's view was that Grass Green's system capabilities were better suited to a Danaher-like model: acquisition and integration around manufacturing, supported by refined operating management to improve acquired projects and sustain growth. Companies such as Fresh Life and Chuanwazi were already close to public-listing scale. Juewei-backed Yaomazi had sales of around RMB 400 million and was preparing to list. Grass Green and Juewei also had several capital interactions, including investment in Liaoji Bangbangji.
The article referenced related prior topics: Yaomazi's planned IPO fundraising of RMB 616 million; seafood prepared-foods player Xianmeilai's planned listing and RMB 600 million fundraising; and Asian Star, backed by New Hope and Meituan, attempting an IPO.
Juewei invested in Bliss Cake in 2017, but did not continue participating in later financing rounds.
In 2017, Juewei invested RMB 15 million in Bliss Cake for a 3.34% stake, implying a valuation of RMB 440 million. Bliss Cake later raised a RMB 96 million Series A from investors including Meituan Longzhu, then a RMB 400 million Series B, and then the newly announced RMB 100 million Pre-C round.
FoodBud described the Bliss Cake investment as painful for Juewei. After the RMB 15 million investment in 2017, Juewei recorded an impairment of RMB 960,000 by year-end. By the end of 2018, the impairment reached RMB 8.34 million. In Juewei's 2019 annual report, the investment was consolidated under Juewei Wangju and no longer separately disclosed.
Juewei still held about 1.6% of Bliss Cake, mainly through Yu Yanxin. Yu had previously been chairman of Juewei's supervisory board and was then mainly managing Juewei Capital.
Bliss Cake chairman Yuan Huohong told 36Kr that proceeds from the new round would mainly be used for supply-chain deployment under the company's county-town-village plan and for full-chain digitalization. He also said the company would launch a listing plan in the future.
Bliss Cake was founded in 2008. It was initially positioned as an offline bakery chain and transformed in 2013 into an internet cake brand. Through a central factory, satellite factory, and self-built cold-chain logistics model, described as a hub-and-spoke model, it had covered more than 300 cities nationwide, built a private-domain user base of more than 22 million, and generated more than 95% of cake orders online. For bread and drinks, online accounted for 40% and offline for 60%.
Bliss Cake had gone through an online transformation, then found online traffic too expensive and returned toward offline stores.
The market had already seen Best Cake, once labeled an internet-plus bakery brand, reach a dead end. FoodBud described similar online celebrity bakery brands as relying on heavy upfront investment, marketing-driven buzz, continuous financing to expand brand influence, and then either an IPO or acquisition exit. If funding breaks in the middle, the whole operating system can fail.
Bliss Cake had to face the same traffic issue. Online traffic is expensive, while offline store operations face the three major cost pressures of rent, labor, and ingredients. FoodBud argued that many people in both primary and secondary markets still had not fully understood the bakery track.
Among listed companies, Christine had been listed in Hong Kong and had lost money for eight consecutive years. Ganso used gifting as its entry point and positioned itself as a refined gift specialist, but its market capitalization was only RMB 5.4 billion. Taoli Bread's central factory plus wholesale model appeared to have gone further, with a market capitalization of RMB 29.2 billion.
FoodBud's overall conclusion was that, in this investment wave, supply-chain companies or brands with very strong supply chains were becoming more attractive. The reason was that, whatever happens, they retain some effective net-asset value. By contrast, traffic-led businesses carry significant instability: if traffic spending fails to produce durable results, the value can disappear.
Note: all financing, valuation, IPO, market-capitalization, expansion, and forward-plan figures are historical as of December 20, 2021.