Snack retail giants with over 25,000 stores are facing intensified regulatory scrutiny as authorities in multiple regions take action against inaccurate weighing practices commonly referred to as "ghost scales." The crackdown follows a series of consumer complaints highlighting significant discrepancies between charged and actual weights at popular bulk snack outlets.
On September 4, the Baotou Market Supervision Bureau announced a citywide special inspection campaign targeting mainstream chain snack stores including Haoxianglai and Zhaoyiming. The initiative focused on verifying whether electronic scales in use had been tampered with, were properly calibrated and certified, and whether device seals remained intact. Inspectors also conducted random sampling of prepackaged goods to check for insufficient net content and labeling irregularities.
The inspection results revealed that authorities examined 123 snack store locations and 284 electronic scales, while sampling six batches of prepackaged products. One scale was found to have skipped mandatory verification, leading to corrective orders and penalties. Beyond individual cases, the bureau emphasized addressing root causes by collectively convening regional heads of major snack brands to reinforce accountability, mandating comprehensive self-inspections across all affiliated stores, and pushing enterprises to establish full-process management systems for scale procurement, calibration, and usage.
Similar enforcement actions have unfolded in other areas, including Xinjiang County in Yuncheng, Shanxi Province, and Funing County in Yancheng, Jiangsu Province, where local market regulators recently conducted electronic scale inspections at Haoxianglai and Zhaoyiming locations. These coordinated efforts reflect growing official attention to fair-trade practices in the rapidly expanding bulk snack retail sector.
Haoxianglai responded on September 6 by stating it takes the reports seriously and will fully cooperate with regulatory investigations. The company declared zero tolerance for short-weighting, promising strict corrective actions against any verified offending stores while welcoming continued oversight from media and consumers. Meanwhile, BUSYMING issued a formal response on September 7, announcing the establishment of a special compensation fund to provide advance payouts to affected customers. The group committed to improving compensation standards from the industry-standard triple price difference to ten times the difference on incorrectly weighed items.
BUSYMING also outlined plans to deploy nationwide scale monitoring systems across its stores, implement daily calibration routines, maintain weighing records, and strengthen staff training and audits. The company stated it had proactively contacted market regulators, pledged full cooperation with inspections, and offered sincere apologies for consumer losses and inconvenience, encouraging customers to verify receipts and report any issues.
Haoxianglai operates as the snack brand under A-share listed company Wanchen Group, though the parent company's origins lie elsewhere. In 2011, Fujian businessman Wang Jiankun founded Hancao Biology, later renamed Wanchen Bio, which initially focused on cultivating and selling fresh edible fungi such as enoki and beech mushrooms. The company listed on Shenzhen's ChiNext in 2021, with Wang expressing ambitions to expand product varieties and capacity within three years.
The listing year brought declining revenue and profits, prompting a strategic pivot in 2022 when Wanchen Bio established subsidiary Nanjing Wanxing to enter the bulk snack sector. That same year, it acquired assets from snack chain Ling Shi Gong Fang, a brand founded in 2007 by Wang's wife Lin Gai Chun, which once operated over 300 physical stores. Additional joint ventures brought the Haoxianglai and Laiyoupin brand teams into the fold. By 2023, Wanchen Bio had acquired the Yadiyadi brand and consolidated its four snack labels under the unified Haoxianglai name, also incorporating the Laobo Daren brand.
The transformation proved dramatic, with 2023 revenue surging 1592 percent to 9.294 billion yuan, driven almost entirely by the snack business which contributed 8.759 billion yuan or 94.25 percent of total revenue. Aggressive store expansion powered this growth, with Haoxianglai surpassing 14,000 stores in 2024 and becoming the first bulk snack brand to exceed 10,000 locations. By September 6, 2026, the brand operated 25,334 stores across 422 new openings in the preceding 90 days alone, averaging roughly 47 new stores daily.
Leadership changes occurred in July 2025 when Wang Jiankun resigned as chairman due to personal time constraints following a period of regulatory detention, handing the role to his sister Wang Liqing. His son Wang Zening assumed the general manager position and appeared on the 2026 New Fortune 500 Wealth List for the first time with personal wealth of 11.08 billion yuan, ranking 413th.
Despite continued store network expansion, Wanchen Group faces slowing growth momentum. The company reported first-half 2026 revenue of 34.836 billion yuan, up 54.26 percent year-on-year, with net profit attributable to shareholders reaching 1.21 billion yuan, up 156.58 percent. While still positive, these figures pale against the prior year's extraordinary 106.89 percent revenue growth and 50,358.8 percent profit surge. The snack segment contributed 34.521 billion yuan in revenue, representing 99.09 percent of total turnover, with gross margins improving 1.25 percentage points to 12.74 percent.
Expenses rose correspondingly, with selling costs climbing 48.14 percent to 1.032 billion yuan and administrative expenses up 47.71 percent to 926 million yuan. Research spending jumped sharply by 1253.15 percent to 31 million yuan amid increased software development efforts. Long-term trends show decelerating performance, with revenue growth falling from 1592.03 percent in 2023 to 59.17 percent in 2025, while profit expansion slowed from 453.95 percent to 358.09 percent over the same period.
Industry analysts suggest diminishing headroom for store expansion. Conservative forecasts from BOCOM International and Huatai Securities place the domestic ceiling for bulk snack outlets at approximately 67,000, while CITIC Securities projects a more optimistic range of 70,000 to 80,000. As of mid-2026, Wanchen Group and BUSYMING operated 23,802 and 26,405 stores respectively, totaling 50,207. Even under the highest estimate, remaining growth space for these two leaders amounts to under 30,000 locations, especially given combined first-half net additions of 5,488 and 4,457 stores respectively.
The era of indiscriminate expansion where simply opening stores guaranteed revenue growth may be approaching its conclusion. However, Wanchen Group expressed confidence during an August 31 roadshow, noting that the domestic snack and beverage market spans 3 to 4 trillion yuan with current bulk channel gross merchandise volume penetration still low. The company characterized industry growth as incremental rather than substitutional, pointing to rising membership numbers matching store openings, improving per-store member counts, and successful validation of expansion feasibility in lower-tier markets as evidence that density potential remains underutilized.