FoodBud

Before the Castle, Part 6 — 2008–2009: The Olympic Year, Iced Coffee, and the First Company Shape ### 2008–2009：奥运年的翻腾、冰咖啡与公司雏形 **A FoodBud translated & annotated edition of Mixue co-founder Zhang Hongfu's first-person memoir**

*Series: "Before the Castle — How Mixue Was Really Built, 1997–2017" · Article 6 of 12 · FoodBud /insights*

1. FoodBud Editor's Note

Article 5 ended with winter: failed milk tea, almost all franchise stores closed, and Zhang Hongfu surviving on a line of poetry. Article 6 begins in spring 2008, an Olympic year when confidence returned everywhere. Mixue also returned to expansion. The company recruited, bought a new truck, signed new franchisees, and Zhang Hongfu went from two stores to five in a flash.

Then the other side of speed appeared just as quickly. A kiosk was moved away by forklift. The first bun-shop window was reclaimed. A food court changed hands. A landlord tried to seize the last stairwell store. Zhang Hongfu's 2008 was both "opening stores like fire" and "closing stores like fire." Out of that turbulence came a second summer hit: one-yuan iced coffee. And out of the family's small operating conflicts came the decision to introduce a professional manager, redesign the logo, write the first culture lines, build the first website, and divide the team into functions.

2. Why This Installment Matters

This is the point where Mixue begins to look less like a set of opportunistic stores and more like a company. The product lesson is iced coffee: cheap, cold, sweet, and good enough for students before Starbucks had entered Henan. The organization lesson is the arrival of Manager Zhang (章) — his surname is 章, a different character from the founders' 张, and 总/*zong* is a title meaning chief or general manager — who helped move Mixue from workshop instinct to brand identity, culture, web presence, and departmental structure. The memoir makes clear that the company's professionalization was not abstract; it came because family-style operation had reached its limits.

—— FoodBud English Translation of the Source · Part 6 Begins ——

2008, a Year When the Whole Nation Was Boiling (Part I)

If things went well, Zhang Hongfu thought, he might be driving a BMW within a year.

At last they made it to spring 2008. It was a big year: the Beijing Olympics would be held that year. Everyone was full of confidence. Even uncles and aunties selling cabbage wanted to speculate in stocks, because everyone said the state would not let the stock market fall during the Olympics. A prosperous age had arrived.

One Olympics gathered the attention of the world. Songs and dances filled the air; the whole nation celebrated. It was said that even the cleaning aunties in the capital could say the English version of "Beijing welcomes you." The enthusiasm of their entrepreneurial team was not affected at all by the winter that had just passed. Their fighting spirit was especially high.

Zhang Hongchao was making plans with the company. In 2007, they had franchised more than twenty stores. If 2008 went well, opening another fifty should not be a problem. At the end of 2007, they had also discovered an ice-cream raw material that tasted even better than theirs, so they negotiated a deep cooperation with that supplier. Their own factory's village was just about to be demolished, so they handed the ice-cream-powder production line over to the supplier.

For the cone side, they also found a supplier: Wu Ge from Jiaozuo. They have continued working with him to the present.

During Spring Festival, they recruited troops and bought horses. That year they newly recruited a dedicated franchise-development manager, Peng Jie. Zhang Hongfu's girlfriend also resigned and went to the office to handle product-order entry and serve as office director. Tao Ge specialized in purchasing and cone production. Dapeng drove deliveries, and they specially added a brand-new Iveco as the cargo truck.

Zhang Hongfu was planning too. After experiencing 2007, he knew the ice-cream business could be done. So in 2008 he wanted to open several more branches. After all, everyone wants to scale up the matter of getting rich.

His luck was exploding. During winter vacation, before work had even begun, around the third day of the first lunar month, he drove Zhang Hongchao's van and took his grandmother out for a ride. There was nowhere much to go, so unconsciously he went near his own store in North University Town. As it happened, at the gate of Zhongzhou University he saw that a kiosk he had long had his eye on had just posted a "for transfer" notice. The glue had not even dried. His mood for sightseeing disappeared. He picked up the phone and called. The landlord said the rent was 2,500 yuan a month, no bargaining. At the time, 2,500 was absolutely equivalent to at least 25,000 today; his previous shop rent was only 800 a month. He hesitated for a long time, then gritted his teeth and decided to take it. The kiosk sat at the main gate of three universities' schools and living areas. If he ran it well, he could buy a BMW within a year.

He loved work. Work made him happy. Even on holiday, while driving his grandmother around, he still had to work.

After taking the store, he immediately mobilized relatives and friends to recruit people. Later he recruited Cai Cai. She and a classmate had come from their hometown after graduating high school. Zhang Hongfu drove to the station to pick them up and took them directly to the store to start cleaning and working. Training? No need. He cleaned together with them; they could just follow along.

The only problem was that the kiosk had previously sold buns and was truly filthy. They cleaned for a full ten days before making the old face look new.

Everything was ready. Only the spring wind was missing.

On the sixteenth day of the first lunar month, the company opened for business. The good news was that inquiry calls never stopped. The previous year, their ice-cream stores had queued too fiercely, and at the time there were not many good start-up projects. A store could be opened with a little more than 10,000 yuan, so there were still many people who wanted to do it.

The bad news was that among the 26 stores franchised in 2007, only five or six had made it to spring 2008. Those five or six were all close friends or relatives around them, who had studied and discussed with each other during winter and each preserved their own life.

Business is always a matter of successive waves pressing forward. The key was that in essence, they were not cheating franchisees. So many neighbors of the previous year's stores chose to come franchise, even though Mixue had not done well at the time.

In the first month after the company opened, it signed and opened more than ten stores. Store-opening speed and efficiency were extremely high then, because there was no need for renovation. Posters were renovation. Once equipment arrived, you pulled in electricity, distributed flyers, pasted posters, played music, and opened immediately.

Zhang Hongfu's own new store opened on the eighteenth day of the first lunar month, just as students returned to school. After the kiosk had been cleaned, he installed two big speakers on the windows on both sides and played all of Jay Chou's released albums on loop. On every pane of glass he pasted a large poster reading: Fresh milk, fresh eggs, fresh Olympic Torch ice cream, fresh experience price: one yuan.

The source calls this "the store that could buy a BMW."

The good news: it had a line as soon as it opened. It sold 2,600 yuan in one day. One store could indeed equal three stores. Buying a BMW in a year was not a dream.

The bad news: it was robbed on the second day. Zhang Hongfu had gone to another store to pick up goods because business that day was especially good and he had distributed flyers all morning. Cai Cai was left alone in the store. All the cash was kept in a stainless-steel basin, which he called the treasure basin. All coins, change, and hundred-yuan bills were thrown together in that basin. Do not ask why they did not separate the hundred-yuan bills; they also did not know why. They had no experience. That noon, two young men picked up the basin, got on a motorcycle, and ran.

After being robbed once, they became afraid, because the two ice-cream machines in the store were also worth more than 10,000 yuan. At the time they could not bear to install security-company surveillance, so Zhang Hongfu and his girlfriend chose to lay bedding on the floor inside the store and sleep there to guard it. The kiosk was only four or five square meters. After subtracting the space for two ice-cream machines, the width left for sleeping on the floor was probably less than one meter. And the kiosk was slanted, so the two of them would always roll in one direction.

Yes, rolling deeper. Rolling in the Deep.

A Year When the Whole Nation Was Boiling (Part II)

The reason Zhang Hongfu could open two more branches within one or two months was that the store-opening cost was truly low. By then he had three stores in hand, with a lot of cash flowing back every day, so he quickly continued opening new stores according to plan, expanding the fruits of getting rich.

One was about forty meters south of his first store — the one next to the bun shop. After that branch opened, the nearby competitor disappeared.

Another was beside his Yingbin Market stairwell store. That original store was at the east gate. He went to the west gate of the market and opened another one. Basically the miscellaneous brands nearby disappeared too.

He admits he was still anxious about opening new stores. Suddenly going from one store to five, his management ability had not improved at all. In the end, the store that received more of his energy did better; the store he visited less did a little worse. There was no systematic operating training for partners. It was basically maintained by rule of people.

Again, the reason he could open two branches within one or two months was that the cost was low: a few thousand yuan for a secondhand machine, a few thousand yuan more for rent, simple poster pasting and electrical wiring, and the store could open.

But good times did not last. Very soon, his bad luck came.

First was the kiosk store at the gate of Zhongzhou University. Because that year was the Olympics, the street office wanted to demolish all kiosks. His kiosk was within the demolition area. One day in June, several forklifts suddenly arrived, directly lifted his store, and pulled it to a corner of the Zhongzhou University dormitory area. That store was shut down just like that.

Second was his first store. The auntie selling buns said she wanted to expand her operation. She felt the 800 yuan a month in rent from him did not have much value, so she planned to take that area back and expand the bun stall. His first store was therefore shut down.

Then came the store forty meters south of the bun shop. It was in a food court. His luck was bad: the food court suddenly changed owner and was going to become a Wei's Liangpi. Naturally, fish in the moat were harmed by the city gate fire. His store was also forced to close.

Last was the west-gate store in Yingbin Market. After opening, the electrical circuit had never been stable. When the circuit was finally fixed, the ice-cream machine became unstable. When the machine stabilized, business became unstable. After all, the east-gate stairwell store had already entered people's hearts deeply, while the west-gate store had a weaker presence. The landlord also did business in the same market. His main business was not doing well — he sold chocolate-dipped fruit skewers from another stairwell at the east gate — so he very much wanted to take the store back and sell ice cream himself.

Zhang Hongfu thought about it. An arm cannot twist a thigh. He simply closed that store too.

After closing the four stores above, he was left with only the final life-saving straw: the Yingbin Market east-gate stairwell store. But the landlord there also notified him that when rent expired in a few days, he did not need to pay; Zhang Hongfu could pack up and leave. The landlord did not plan to continue renting it out. He even told Zhang Hongfu with kind intentions that if his equipment had nowhere to go, he could sell it to the landlord at a discount, and the landlord would continue selling ice cream there.

Zhang Hongfu understood: this last life-saving straw was what the landlord wanted to seize.

He blames his own early social immaturity. When renting the place, they did not even sign a contract. They had only verbally agreed to a three-year term, with the next year's rent paid when due. Perhaps the landlord felt Zhang Hongfu was thin and weak, like a university student, and probably easy to talk to.

Zhang Hongfu became angry. He said he would not leave. The landlord said that if he did not leave, tomorrow he would lock the door.

The next morning Zhang Hongfu went over. Sure enough, the landlord had locked his door.

The landlord also did business in the market, setting up an outdoor stall selling melon seeds and snacks. Zhang Hongfu found a large plastic sheet and covered the landlord's stall too. In the end they had a fight, and the police were called. He does not recount the details. In any case, he eventually kept the place.

The jianghu is dangerous. But when only the final life-saving straw remains, Zhang Hongfu is not someone with no temper. When it comes to fighting for it, he will still fight desperately.

In the Olympic year of 2008, the whole country was vigorous and fiery. Zhang Hongfu also opened stores vigorously and closed stores vigorously. In only a few months, he went from two stores to five, then from five back to one. The phrase "its rise was sudden; its fall was swift" was the true portrayal of his first half of 2008.

The company's situation rose and fell in almost the same way. Before May Day, whether by phone or company visits, franchise inquiries were bustling every day. After May Day, everything instantly became quiet.

Chinese people like doing things in crowds. Spring is the peak season for entrepreneurship. After May Day, everyone feels as if the year is already settled, and the idea of starting a business disappears.

Then after July came summer vacation. There was not even one customer visiting the company. Goods-ordering calls were also quiet. They simply closed the office directly: half the people went on summer break; half went to inspect stores.

The Second Hit Product

Until 2011, iced coffee was Mixue's best-selling summer product.

In July 2008, because most of the previous year's franchise stores had not made it to spring, there were not many stores actually operating that year. Store inspections did not take too long, so Zhang Hongfu could still devote most of his energy to his own store.

The east-gate stairwell in Yingbin Market had become his last store. When summer vacation came that year, this store did not close for vacation like other campus stores. It operated normally. After all, if he closed it, he would have nothing to do.

At the time their product was only ice cream. After May, as the weather grew hotter, eating ice cream began to feel a little greasy. What customers needed more in summer was a beverage that quenched thirst and relieved heat. They had no systematic solution for franchise stores then. Zhang Hongchao's Dongfeng Road store was the first to add ice porridge and iced fruit juice.

Under the influence of the main store and the second store, all franchise stores added ice porridge. After all, ice porridge was three yuan a bowl, and the average ticket was relatively high. As franchisees, they liked products with high average tickets. But precisely because the average ticket was relatively high, ice porridge sales were not especially explosive. In each franchise store, sales were only around a hundred bowls a day.

They still needed a hit product like ice cream.

In June, following the formula from the first start-up ten years earlier, Zhang Hongchao blended fruit juice in two flavors: orange and green apple. He put it into the kind of current-mixing juice machine that rotates or sprays and sold it from there. The machine had built-in refrigeration, so what came out into the cup was already ice cold.

They used the common eight-ounce red cola cup in the market and sold it for one yuan a cup. It was refreshing, thirst-quenching, cheap, and affordable. So it sold extremely well, gradually approaching ice cream's sales volume.

The secondhand fresh-juice mixing machine Zhang Hongchao bought was 1,500 yuan. Zhang Hongfu also wanted to add this iced fruit juice, but he was reluctant to spend 1,500 yuan on the equipment, so he kept delaying until July.

By July, students had already gone on vacation. The weather was violently hot, and fewer people were eating ice cream. He was truly forced into a corner, so he went to the secondhand vehicle market and wandered around. He happened to find a used Dongbei-brand fresh-juice mixing machine, double-cylinder stirring type. He gritted his teeth and bought it.

At that time Zhang Hongchao had also given the formula to their central kitchen. The central kitchen produced concentrated raw materials for these juices, so they could deliver ingredients to the store, and the store only needed to add water, mix evenly, pour into the juice machine, and start selling.

Zhang Hongfu's Dongbei juice machine had two cylinders: one sold orange flavor, one sold green apple. Because the formula's taste suited the broader environment at the time, and because it was unique in the whole Yingbin Market, with low price and a not-small cup, it sold strongly as soon as it launched.

But he soon discovered that 80% of customers bought orange flavor. Very few bought green apple. Often orange sold through three or four tanks while green apple had not moved one tank. And if it sold slowly, the juice gradually lost fragrance and the taste became worse and worse.

Coincidentally, Zhang Hongfu personally did not like the green-apple flavor much either. He wondered whether he could develop another hit that could compete with orange.

As it happened, Zhang Hongchao had already been starting businesses for more than ten years, and his home's basement contained all kinds of treasures bought during those years. Once their big warehouse did not have enough space, so they had to move a batch of cones to Zhang Hongchao's basement. Zhang Hongfu wandered around there and discovered half a box of Nestle pure coffee powder.

By then, they had been doing the ice-cream chain for more than a year. Coffee had been a product sold in Super Ice Castle a year earlier. In the second half of 2007, Super Ice Castle had removed the coffee product. Zhang Hongfu personally had liked Zhang Hongchao's three-in-one coffee back then, so he hauled that half box of coffee powder back to his own store.

One day in July, sweating heavily in the store, he began tinkering by himself. He weighed out a basin of water, added sugar according to the fruit juice sweetness, added non-dairy creamer at roughly milk-tea concentration, and finally added a large hot-pot ladle of pure coffee powder.

After stirring, it tasted pretty good. He drank three cups by himself. So he emptied and washed the peach-flavor cylinder in the juice machine outside, poured the coffee into that tank, and handwrote a label to paste on it: Cappuccino Coffee, one yuan per cup.

At that time he had no idea how cappuccino was actually made. He only knew the name sounded romantic and pleasant, because Elva Hsiao had a song called "Love Is Like Cappuccino."

Unexpectedly, it became hot as soon as it launched. A one-yuan cup of cappuccino iced coffee had huge appeal to students. Very soon, he was mixing iced coffee basin after basin. From morning to night he could sell more than ten basins. At night when he counted the cash, he found he had sold more than 800 cups.

Looking back now, he thinks that ten years earlier he was probably the brand with the highest coffee sales in the whole Henan market. Starbucks had not yet entered Henan. McDonald's and KFC coffee basically did not sell much either. The reason this product became hot immediately was that it really did taste good. Three-in-one coffee with sugar and milk was easy for anyone to accept. And at one yuan per cup, one could neither suffer a loss nor be fooled; one could also casually taste what the cappuccino in the song was like.

Fortunately, from July all the way to winter, nobody expressed any objection that his cappuccino was not authentic. Perhaps drinks have no fixed taste; what suits the mouth is best. His selling method was also extremely crude: an eight-ounce paper cup with a straw inserted, not even a lid.

Until 2011, iced coffee remained the best-selling summer product.

Partnership and the Introduction of a Manager

Mixue Bingcheng gradually became more like a company. Everything began to run steadily.

The family disturbance that arose was actually the difficulty produced by small-family-style operation. If a group of people have not seen much of the world, they naturally fall into tiny disputes. At this point they all realized it was time for the company to take another step forward. They should broaden their vision and introduce someone more capable and with broader perspective, someone who could help Mixue transform from a workshop into a more formal company.

Family members also understood this thinking. Introducing a manager and operating as a company would be more fair and transparent than relying on a particular family member. At that time, of course, they did not understand institutions such as headhunting firms. They began looking among people around them for talent who could shoulder this important task.

As it happened, Tao Ge, then responsible for procurement, had a classmate surnamed Zhang. He lived in Shanghai and worked for a fairly large flooring manufacturer, supervising sales. He was familiar with markets across the country and had experience leading large teams. He was very motivated. At the time, one of his relatives also operated one of their franchise stores, so they made contact with him.

After several rounds of communication and understanding, he gladly expressed willingness to join. He resigned from his job in Shanghai and came alone, resolute, to Zhengzhou to join Mixue Bingcheng.

To better motivate everyone, Zhang Hongchao redesigned the equity structure. What had previously been his sole proprietorship became a four-person partnership. He gave the largest shareholder position to Manager Zhang. Zhang Hongchao and Tao Ge stood side by side, Zhang Hongfu ranked third, and the "Gang of Four" was established.

By then it was already spring 2009. After Manager Zhang joined them, he immediately began sorting out some important foundational work. Previously they had only known how to develop business. Nobody raised important foundational work because nobody understood it.

First, Manager Zhang took them to find designers and began upgrading the logo. Their old logo had been an ice-cream-shaped vector image Zhang Hongchao found online and used directly. Today, Zhang Hongfu says, it would probably incur a copyright-protection fine. That old logo had been carefully chosen by Zhang Hongchao and was quite useful, but it was simply the shape of an ice cream, too strongly directional. Manager Zhang believed Mixue's next-stage transformation should push toward tea drinks, so they needed an identifying graphic that could represent Mixue Bingcheng's sweetness and replace the previous ice-cream mark.

The source shows the first version of the logo. Very soon Manager Zhang found a studio called Shanghai Design. A designer surnamed Zhang there designed a satisfactory logo for them. Because they did not have much money at the time, they bargained in every way. They only commissioned a logo, not extended applications. The final fee was 800 yuan. They later used that logo for ten years, until 2018.

Second, Manager Zhang organized corporate culture. Before this, they did not have the concept of corporate culture. They had certainly never heard of mission, vision, or values. After arriving, he quickly organized a set of behavioral creed lines suitable for them, which they used for three years:

Pursuit: If not first, then unique.

Vision: Assist entrepreneurship; drive employment.

Mission: Create a high-quality price revolution that benefits the public.

Behavioral creed: What is said must be done; words and actions must be consistent.

Then he found people to design their first website. The design company was called Jueshi Design Studio. Later they and designer Liu became friends. That version of the website was very beautiful, full of sweetness. The background music was Joe Hisaishi's "Castle in the Sky."

Finally, Manager Zhang reorganized and divided the team. Under the general manager were franchise development, operations, planning, finance, and goods allocation. The prototype of a small company had already formed.

The source then shows the logo Manager Zhang found someone to design, the logo they used for ten years.

What was even more valuable was that Manager Zhang brought many advanced experiences from southern markets. At the time, Shanghai's tea-drink market was already relatively mature. So the suffix of Mixue Bingcheng Fresh Ice Cream added tea drinks, and they also began exploring tea drinks.

In short, for Mixue Bingcheng at that stage, Manager Zhang brought many advanced operating concepts. Zhang Hongfu says he must also thank him for opening his own field of vision. Manager Zhang took him to Shanghai for his first exhibition, and also took him to Guangdong, Guangxi, and Hunan for his first market research trips.

Mixue Bingcheng gradually became more like a company. Everything began to run steadily.

—— FoodBud English Translation of the Source · Part 6 Ends ——

3. FoodBud Notes

1. 2008 shows both the power and fragility of low-cost expansion. The unit economics looked strong enough for "BMW" dreams, but the sites were fragile: kiosks, windows, food courts, oral agreements, weak contracts, and landlord risk.

2. "Posters are renovation" is an early operating doctrine. Store opening is fast because the format is simple. That simplicity later becomes powerful, but in 2008 it also means stores can be copied, seized, moved, or closed quickly.

3. Iced coffee is a product-market fit moment. One yuan, cold, sweet, easy to try, culturally familiar through pop music, and sold before coffee chains were strong in Henan. It shows Mixue's habit of turning category aspiration into mass affordability.

4. Family operation reaches its limit. The introduction of Manager Zhang is not decorative. It is the organizational answer to a real bottleneck: small-family decision-making, no brand system, no culture vocabulary, no website, and no functional team.

5. The company begins to separate identity from a single product. Replacing an ice-cream-only logo with a sweeter, broader mark is an early sign that Mixue was preparing to move from fresh ice cream toward a wider drink-and-dessert system.

4. Timeline (this installment)

  • Spring 2008 — Mixue reopens after a hard winter with Olympic-year optimism and franchise expansion plans.
  • Early 2008 — Zhang Hongfu leases the Zhongzhou University kiosk and sells 2,600 yuan on opening day.
  • 2008 first half — He expands from two stores to five, then closes four stores due to demolition, landlord changes, and weak site stability.
  • July 2008 — The Yingbin Market east-gate stairwell becomes Zhang Hongfu's last store.
  • Summer 2008 — One-yuan iced fruit juice launches; Zhang Hongfu develops one-yuan iced coffee from leftover Nestle coffee powder.
  • 2008–2011 — Iced coffee becomes Mixue's best-selling summer product.
  • Spring 2009 — Manager Zhang joins Mixue from Shanghai; equity and management are redesigned into a four-person partnership.
  • 2009 — Logo redesign, first culture statements, first website, and functional departments begin to form.

5. Pull Quotes (web-ready)

1. *"Posters were renovation."* — Zhang Hongfu (translated from the source text) 2. *"Its rise was sudden; its fall was swift."* — Zhang Hongfu on his 2008 store cycle (translated from the source text) 3. *"Drinks have no fixed taste; what suits the mouth is best."* — Zhang Hongfu (translated from the source text) 4. *"If not first, then unique."* — early Mixue culture line (translated from the source text) 5. *"Mixue Bingcheng gradually became more like a company."* — Zhang Hongfu (translated from the source text)

Series navigation

*Before the Castle: How Mixue Was Really Built, 1997-2017 · Part 6 of 12 · FoodBud /insights*

*This is a translated and annotated edition, not an original FoodBud interview. Authorized translation: translated with permission from Zhang Hongfu's memoir (经授权翻译自张红甫回忆录). Original author/source: Zhang Hongfu (张红甫). The translated source is kept separate from FoodBud's Editor's Note, FoodBud Notes, timeline, and pull quotes.*

*Publication note: corporate data is primary-source-locked to HKEX filings where stated. Market capitalization and any FY2025 GMV / systemwide-sales figure are intentionally not stated. “Scale” means systemwide sales / GMV and store count, never company revenue. FoodBud is information only, not investment advice.*