FoodBud · /insights flagship series
12-part series
MIXUE Group · HKEX: 2097
Before the Castle: How Mixue Was Really Built, 1997–2017
FoodBud translated & annotated edition of Zhang Hongfu’s first-person memoir
This is a translated and annotated edition, not an original FoodBud interview.
The 12-part edition is published. Market capitalization and any FY2025 GMV / systemwide-sales amount remain intentionally unstated unless source-locked.
Company context
- Listing
- HKEX: 2097
- Public since
- H shares listed in Hong Kong, March 2025
- Store network
- 59,823 stores as of 31 Dec 2025, overwhelmingly franchised
A note on scale: systemwide sales / GMV measures what customers spend across all stores, while company revenue is mostly the business-to-business sale of supplies and equipment to franchisees. This series keeps the two apart and never calls GMV “revenue.” No GMV / systemwide-sales figure is stated here.
What this series covers
Mixue is the case study analysts reach for when they want to explain value-priced foodservice at scale, and almost always explain from the financials down. This series runs the other direction. Co-founder Zhang Hongfu wrote a long first-person history of the company’s first two decades; FoodBud is translating and annotating it in full, keeping the translated source separate from FoodBud commentary, timeline, and notes.
Read across all twelve parts, the memoir explains the things a model alone cannot: why the price discipline is a lived reflex rather than a slide, how a franchise network of tens of thousands of stores was governed into existence, where the supply-chain control actually came from, and how founder culture set the operating temperament. It is the origin story behind the numbers on the Mixue company card.
How frugality became an operating philosophy, not a promotion.
Governing a store network of scale without losing the standard.
Where in-house product and logistics control actually began.
The temperament that set how the company decides and survives.
Series progress
12 published · source translation separated from FoodBud notes
Each installment includes previous/next navigation. Per-article slugs use the mixue-founder-history stem and are linked from each installment.
The twelve parts
Periods are editorial approximations from the memoir arc.
- Part 01 · Pre-1997Published
Origins: Before the First Cone
Rural Henan, a family education business, and the frugality that would become a pricing philosophy — the founder culture in place before there was a store.
Read part 01 - Part 02 · 1997Published
Shaved Ice in the Winter of 1997
A cold-snap, a shaved-ice cart, and the first stores — the “three deaths, three rebirths” beginning of the business.
Read part 02 - Part 03 · 1998–2003Published
Walls Down, Doors Open
Candied hawthorns in Hefei, the Mixue name, policy shocks and SARS — and the aluminum-factory base that outlasted them.
Read part 03 - Part 04 · 2004–2006Published
The First Cone and the Super Ice Castle
A compound restaurant, lessons taken from competitors, the Super Ice Castle, and the first ice cream cone.
Read part 04 - Part 05 · 2007Published
The First Franchisee, the First Winter
Zhang Hongfu leaves school for the business, the first franchised store opens, and a winter product failure teaches its lesson.
Read part 05 - Part 06 · 2008Published
Olympic Year: Iced Coffee and the Shape of a Company
Expansion and closures, iced coffee, a first logo and culture, and an early department structure — the year Mixue began to look like a company.
Read part 06 - Part 07 · 2009–2011Published
The High-End Fantasy and the Return to Affordability
Store patrols, an experimental store, self-taught design, and a premium gamble that did not hold — and the return to affordability.
Read part 07 - Part 08 · 2012Published
The 3000 Plan and the Birth of the Lemonade
A general-manager turn, a rebuilt head office, the 3000-store plan, and the lemonade that would become a signature.
Read part 08 - Part 09 · 2013Published
Upgrading the Lemonade, and the Anxiety of 2013
A product upgrade under scrutiny, a supply shock, the Warm Heart Plan, and a founder’s reckoning with anxiety.
Read part 09 - Part 10 · 2014–2015Published
The National Push and Free Logistics
A new headquarters, nationwide free logistics, and an ambitious growth target — the infrastructure behind the national push.
Read part 10 - Part 11 · 2015Published
The Store Patrol and the QSC Reckoning
Overconfidence meets a competitor’s shock, the first great store patrol, and a quality reckoning that reset the standard.
Read part 11 - Part 12 · 2016–2017Published
Rooting Down: The Twentieth Anniversary
A product conflict, a new branch in Chengdu, a hard year-end review — and the twentieth anniversary in 2017.
Read part 12
What an operator can take — and what to leave
Read as a playbook, the memoir keeps returning to three levers: a price low enough to force volume, a supply chain owned rather than rented, and a franchise system built to replicate, not to extract. Those are studyable. What does not travel as cleanly — the timing, the geography of China's lower-tier cities, and a cost structure few markets can match. Treat the story as a lens, not a template.
This is a founder's account, not audited unit economics. Franchisee true profit, payback periods, and store-level margins are not in here, and we do not infer them. Market-cap and FY2025 GMV figures remain unstated until source-locked.
FoodBud is information only, not investment advice.
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