This is an English adaptation of a FoodBud historical article originally published on July 12, 2022.
After Shanghai resumed work and production in 2022, local consumer brands began to see demand return. In beverages, the rebound was especially visible: media reports cited one tea-drink brand exceeding 2,000 cups per day, with peaks of 5,000 cups, while one coffee shop reportedly reached RMB 100,000 in sales on its first day after reopening.
Lelecha co-CEO Li Mingbo said the Shanghai-born tea and bakery brand had recovered to 90% of pre-Covid national performance, with weekly sales rising for ten consecutive weeks. Weekday sales had returned to 100% of pre-Covid levels, while full-week sales had recovered to 85-90%.
Founded in 2016 in Shanghai’s Wujiaochang area, Lelecha built its brand around a “tea drink + soft European bread” model, with products including cheese fruit tea, “dirty tea,” dirty buns, Sultan King durian cheese soft bread, and lava-style bakery items.
When Shanghai entered lockdown in April 2022, Lelecha’s management team concluded that restrictions might not be short term. The company formed cross-functional task forces across the CEO office, online operations, store operations, R&D, supply chain, and internal training, and made community group buying its core operating channel.
Execution was difficult. Store reopening required government supply-protection approvals, followed by coordination with district commerce departments, food and drug regulators, local streets, and mall landlords. Staff also had to meet community and 48-hour PCR requirements before reaching stores, with some employees reportedly walking for hours with luggage to enter closed-loop work arrangements.
Because special-period rules prioritized essential goods, Lelecha first restarted bakery-focused stores. Its first Shanghai store to reopen was the Daxue Road Chuangzhi Tiandi location on April 17, 2022.
Demand quickly exceeded capacity. Lelecha produced only what it could make, but service-team workload rose to five to six times normal levels, and some orders were scheduled two weeks out. The company responded by increasing employee compensation through incentive policies and accelerating store reopenings. By May 6, 2022, it had reopened 13 stores with more than 100 employees back at work.
Li said April sales were only 30% of pre-Covid levels. By early May, they had recovered to 50%; by the end of May, to 70%. The company had been profitable before the outbreak and expected to return to profitability within two months as dine-in, intercity travel, tourism, and offline foodservice recovered.
Lelecha planned to reinforce its East China base while entering new markets. Beyond its existing presence in 13 cities including Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan, and Chengdu, the company said it would open in 12 additional cities across East China, Central China, North China, and Southwest China.
Its stated store-count targets were 220 stores in 2022 and more than 400 in 2023. In East China, Lelecha planned to expand north into Shandong, south into Fujian, and west into Anhui, while also covering surrounding provinces in Central and Southwest China based on market size, operating efficiency, and competitive dynamics.
The company also aimed to deepen density in cities it already served, using flagship stores, standard stores, and Fresh stores. The Fresh format was described as a lighter, younger, delivery-oriented store model designed for denser regional coverage and lower-tier market entry.
Lelecha planned to keep a full price band of RMB 15-35, covering both basic products and richer, higher-quality beverages. Li said the brand would not simply follow competitors into lower-priced, simplified “juice + jelly + small amount of fresh fruit” products.
The company was also adjusting toward lighter drinks with less burden on the body, such as reducing cheese foam and toppings and simplifying the combination of tea and fruit. It introduced a 500 ml medium cup among higher-end tea brands, referencing RTD beverage formats and aiming to lower the entry price while increasing consumption frequency.
Lelecha said it would not set a hard ceiling such as avoiding products above RMB 29. Its stated principle was “good products, appropriate prices,” with competitive value across each price band.
Lelecha planned to reorganize both beverage and bakery R&D. For drinks, it would reduce launch frequency and focus on more distinctive hero products, including coconut water and camellia lemon tea series.
For bakery, the company planned to broaden consumption occasions beyond soft European bread, adding Japanese-style bread, French-European bread, Chinese pastry, and a higher share of OEM products.
Li also criticized the industry’s cycle of rapid, homogenized launches, arguing that it consumed R&D resources without necessarily creating memorable products for consumers.
Lelecha emphasized direct operation as a way to maintain product and service quality. Li said the company would remain open to different cooperation models depending on its development stage, but only with partners whose values were closely aligned.
Operational upgrades included internal systems such as mentorship, internal competition mechanisms, and future co-building/co-investment structures, alongside digital tools and equipment including automated scheduling, MRP-based ordering, sugar-level coding, BI systems, and tea-making machines.
On supply chain, Lelecha said it had built a demand-driven management platform connecting information flow, capital flow, logistics, and supplier collaboration. It planned to work more deeply with upstream production bases and suppliers to control product quality from source and reduce costs across the value chain.
The company also planned a brand-positioning and visual-identity upgrade for its August 8 brand day, centered on the proposition of “happiness.” Longer term, Lelecha framed its post-Covid goal as improving not only scale, but also product and service quality, laying a foundation for national expansion and eventual overseas development.
Note: Forward-looking store targets, profitability expectations, brand-day plans, and expansion plans are historical statements from 2022.