This is an English adaptation of a FoodBud historical article originally published on February 14, 2022.
Recent discussion around Heytea layoffs and Nayuki’s expected 2021 loss of more than RMB 100 million has put China’s new-style tea segment under pressure. The sentiment is now sharply negative, after an earlier period when many of the same brands were widely praised.
Some observers questioned whether the Heytea layoff story was being amplified in an organized way. Sina Finance cited anonymous posts on Maimai and data from Jiuqian. Later, Mingliang Company used Jiuqian data to disclose several recent Heytea operating indicators:
Regardless of the debate around the layoffs, the broader new-style tea market appears to be entering a correction after a period of relatively rough expansion. Covid-19 accelerated that adjustment.
The issue is not unique to Heytea. Cha Yan Yue Se’s earlier internal disputes also highlighted a gap: its marketing thinking appeared advanced, but store-level management seemed much less efficient. When market conditions were strong, brands could rely on financing to support rapid expansion. But 2021 was an extremely difficult year, even harder than 2020.
Heytea, Nayuki and other tea chains are facing similar questions: how to keep expanding, how much growth is realistic, and how to improve the operating model behind the store network.
Using Heytea as the example, Narrow Door F&B data showed that Heytea opened 220 new stores in 2019 and 320 in 2020, while new openings slowed to 198 stores in 2021.
Heytea reportedly first expected to open 500 stores in 2021, which was close to the upper limit of its expansion capacity. It later adjusted the target to 300 stores.
Chains usually accelerate openings in the second half of the year, but repeated Covid-19 disruptions in 2021 made a slowdown understandable. In fourth-quarter 2021 in particular, Covid-19 had a large impact on Starbucks, Yum China, Nayuki and other chains. Starbucks, for example, recorded a 14% decline in same-store sales in China in that quarter.
Some public-market analysts had estimated that premium fresh-made tea brands such as Heytea and Nayuki could ultimately support about 3,500 stores in China. Heytea’s internal estimate was that it could reach 2,500-3,000 stores over the following five years. Others estimated that Heytea could approach saturation at around 2,000 stores.
Jihai brand-monitoring data showed that Starbucks had 947 stores in Shanghai. But the tea category is much more competitive. In a city such as Shanghai, using Starbucks as a benchmark, Heytea’s ceiling might be around 300-400 stores.
At the time, Heytea had 121 stores in Shanghai and 109 in its home market of Shenzhen.
Pricing is another constraint. Given Heytea’s product pricing, moving deeply into lower-tier city markets is difficult because its products remain expensive for many third- and fourth-tier cities. Recently, Heytea lowered prices on two product lines while simplifying ingredients.
Another challenge is density. As store density rises, same-store performance can decline. For example, in an area with 100 stores, each additional 10 stores might reduce store revenue by 5%. Balancing continued network expansion with store revenue and profit protection is a central operating problem.
A key question is whether premium tea chains such as Heytea will eventually open franchising in selected regions, or use a tightly controlled franchise model to continue expanding.
The new-style tea market rose quickly, but its operating history is still short. In the early stage, when market enthusiasm was high, rough expansion was almost inevitable.
In that phase, labor filled many gaps: product preparation in stores, supply procurement and site selection. Even though Heytea recruited executives from McDonald’s systems and Starbucks, bringing deeper management and operating experience, new-style tea was still a new product and market. Operators had to learn while moving.
Site selection is one example. When Heytea’s brand heat was high, stores could achieve strong efficiency. But as density increased, competitors multiplied and hype normalized, store revenue naturally pulled back. Manual site selection also needed to be supported by data and systems to improve the probability of successful openings.
Starbucks has used ready-to-drink products to test the potential scale of regional markets, and has bought map and other data to integrate into its own GIS systems. It can then forecast store revenue, profit and performance using population, income, traffic, competitor impact and other dimensions.
At store level, new-style tea requires more labor in production than a chain such as Luckin Coffee. The article refers to earlier FoodBud coverage comparing store processes and employee experiences at Heytea, Nayuki and Luckin.
Nayuki previously announced that its self-developed automated tea-making equipment had started manufacturer selection and trial production at the end of fourth-quarter 2021. It was being introduced in some stores during idle periods and was expected to be formally used nationwide before third-quarter 2022.
Heytea’s store efficiency improvement follows the same logic: more systemization and digitization. Tasks such as cooking brown-sugar boba, brewing tea and making cheese foam can gradually be handled by machines instead of labor. Heytea also moved from monthly store inventory counts toward weekly counts, improving operating precision and reducing some material waste. Scheduling systems can also improve labor allocation and reduce labor costs.
Once store management efficiency improves, optimizing staffing becomes a standard step. That helps explain why Heytea might cut jobs, with Covid-19 also potentially playing a role.
On the supply side, fruit usually accounts for the largest share of raw-material procurement for new-style beverage brands, followed by tea and dairy. Heytea is no exception.
Heytea has built its own organically certified tea gardens, which can supply part of its needs, but it still mainly purchases from third-party suppliers. Fruit is harder. Procurement standards are not fully standardized, and pricing primary agricultural products is difficult. Heytea’s response is somewhat similar to Starbucks’ approach to coffee beans: lock in purchase prices in advance to gradually reduce costs.
Loss is another issue. Based on Heytea and Nayuki’s fruit loss-rate controls, the estimated target is to keep loss within 5%.
Heytea’s store count continued to grow, but fruit procurement costs did not fall significantly. The main reason is that fruit quality and timeliness requirements are high, creating returns, exchanges and urgent additional orders that push procurement costs up.
Nayuki’s earlier investment in Tianye Co. was aimed at using a core supplier to improve fruit-processing efficiency and reduce store-level operating difficulty.
Across the category, brands are trying to have suppliers process fruit before delivery to stores. But freshness can be lost in the process. The operating question is how each brand balances efficiency and product quality.
Note: forward-looking store targets, automation timelines and investment-related figures are historical, from the article’s February 14, 2022 context.