This is an English adaptation of a FoodBud historical article originally published on October 17, 2022.
This article is adapted from an interview originally published by 7.5 Degrees with Ryan Wei, Partner and Chief Strategy Officer of SEVEN Retail Group, about Golden Lamian’s expansion model in Indonesia during the Covid-19 period.
Golden Lamian was founded in 2017 and described in the source as Indonesia’s largest Chinese ramen chain. While many foodservice franchise chains in Southeast Asia were hit by declining offline traffic during the pandemic, Golden Lamian said it avoided major losses and store closures, while continuing to add stores.
The brand belongs to SEVEN Retail Group, an Indonesia-based consumer brand group. Its portfolio spans chain foodservice and lifestyle services, including Golden Lamian, the newer Golden Hotpot & Grill, Hey! Kafe, Fit-Hub, and SOZO Skin. At the time of the interview, SEVEN Retail Group had more than 200 offline stores across more than 20 Indonesian cities and was adding new stores weekly.
Ryan Wei described Golden Lamian’s model as “Non-Franchise.” It is not a conventional franchise in which the franchisee operates the store. Instead, individual investors fund the initial store capex, while the brand handles site selection, buildout, staffing, training, supply, operations, marketing, and store management.
In SEVEN Retail Group’s framing, the store investor is closer to a silent shareholder at the unit level than a traditional franchisee. The investor receives store-level operating profit without taking on daily operations.
Wei said this model served two purposes:
He contrasted this with conventional franchising, where brand owners rely on local franchisees to execute operating standards. SEVEN Retail Group argued that its model preserved tighter control over product quality, service, training, and operating consistency.
Wei said the group’s core strategy was to build a profitable single-store model before scaling. He described the company’s operating approach as influenced by lean startup methods and first-principles thinking: form hypotheses, test quickly, collect feedback, iterate, and optimize.
The company focused on product-market fit before store network expansion. Its emphasis was same-store sales growth, or SSSG. Wei said that because many restaurant and retail unit costs are relatively fixed, a 10% or 20% lift in sales can translate into a 30% or 50% increase in profit through operating leverage.
Golden Lamian was affected by mall closures during the worst parts of the pandemic. However, Wei said that across the two-to-three-year pandemic period, excluding short-term lockdown closures, the chain did not record losses or close stores because of poor operations.
The pandemic pushed the company to be more cautious with group cash and helped accelerate the Non-Franchise model. Without the pandemic, Wei said the company could have continued self-funding new stores from single-store profits. Under pandemic pressure, the company shifted toward letting high-net-worth individuals participate in new-store expansion.
Wei compared SEVEN Retail Group with several reference models:
The group’s stated ambition was to build a house of brands serving younger Indonesian consumers across foodservice, snacks, fitness, beauty, retail, and social occasions. Wei noted that Indonesia’s consumer population had a median age below 30, with demand expected to evolve as Millennials, Gen Z, post-95, and post-00 consumers age into new life stages.
Wei positioned Golden Lamian as more than a ramen chain. The brand also sold fried chicken, ice cream, and other items.
He described three product-development advantages:
Wei argued that consumer loyalty in foodservice is relative. In his view, durable consumer brands depend on product quality, delight, convenience, and accessibility.
For restaurant and lifestyle-service brands, he said rapid store expansion does not necessarily dilute performance. If quality is consistent, a dense store network can deepen brand awareness and make repeat purchase easier.
Wei expected successful consumer brands in Southeast Asia to follow an omnichannel growth path combining online and offline channels. He said many large offline brands in Indonesia slow down after expanding in Jakarta, while many online brands struggle when they move into physical retail.
SEVEN Retail Group’s stated approach was to start from offline execution, support growth through online promotion and conversion, and build scale through a multi-brand store network.
Looking beyond Indonesia, Wei said the group’s brands were designed for scale and network effects rather than niche single-store profitability. The group hoped to expand across Asia-Pacific, with the rest of Southeast Asia as the first target, followed by Japan, Korea, Australia, and potentially other global markets over the medium to long term. Wei also said the group preferred early strategic partnerships over external financing for regional expansion and was open to cooperation with international restaurant, lifestyle, local-service, internet, and FMCG groups interested in Indonesia and Southeast Asia.
Note: financing, IPO references, investor-return claims, store counts, expansion plans, and forward-looking targets are historical statements from the October 17, 2022 source article.