When Luo (alias) went shopping for snacks with a 500‑yuan membership card, she expected to spend comfortably less than her budget. She left a mall basement store clutching a small bag of roasted seeds, walnuts, macadamias and a pack of crunchy strawberries — and a bill of more than 400 yuan. Stories like hers have proliferated on Chinese social media, where shoppers mockingly call two fast‑expanding chains “Xueji Jewels” and “Qiwang Goldshops” after discovering that a modest scoop of sunflower seeds can cost more than a jin (500g) of pork.
The phenomenon is straightforward: brands that sell traditional roasted nuts and seeds have repackaged them as premium, mall‑centric snack experiences. Xueji (薛记炒货) and Qiwang (琦王花生) operate more than 1,200 and 800 outlets respectively, and a large majority are located in shopping‑centre basements — B1 and B2 levels that command heavy foot traffic. Prices are set per 500g unit and routinely outstrip national wholesale prices for staple foods; sunflower seeds at Xueji sell for 23.8–26.8 yuan per 500g, and Qiwang’s version is 19.8 yuan, while pork is trading at roughly 10 yuan per jin.
The premium tag rests on a package of claims: origin stories, slow‑roast techniques and promises of “same‑day” baking. Xueji stresses mountain‑sourced chestnuts and 230°C slow roasting; Qiwang highlights small‑pot frying and explicit provenance on its price tags. But these selling points are not unique — other big snack firms tout similar supply chains and processes — and field visits show only a handful of SKUs are roasted the same day while many products carry production dates days or months earlier.
Behind the sticker shock is a deliberate retail strategy: expensive mall rents, high‑end shopfitting and staff to create an artisanal atmosphere. Prime mall B1 rents can reach 50–80 yuan per square metre per day, and Xueji’s franchise guidance lists 380,000 yuan for fitting out an 80‑square‑metre store. The sensory theatre — bright lights, colourful displays and the smell of roasting — converts ordinary nuts into “gifts” and social‑media fodder, driving organic seeding by taste influencers and micro‑KOLs on platforms like Xiaohongshu and Douyin.
That marketing works, but it also masks thin economic margins and rising scrutiny. Comparisons with packaged national brands show wide price spreads: a mainstream cashew 500g box can cost 40.9 yuan while Xueji lists macadamia at 185 yuan and hand‑peeled pine nuts at 218 yuan per 500g. Investors who backed store roll‑outs have argued that higher prices reflect real costs, yet rapid store expansion has decelerated — openings fell from several hundred annually in 2022 to about 200 a year for Xueji and under 100 for Qiwang in the most recent years — suggesting demand elasticity and market saturation.
The reputational risk is tangible. When the promise of “freshly roasted” is exposed as partial — some items are frozen, thawed and roasted in store on a weekly cadence — consumers feel misled and the premium becomes harder to justify. Analysts note this gap between expectation and practice risks a loss of the “social face” value that helped fuel early growth: once the novelty fades, shoppers compare value more dispassionately against cheaper packaged alternatives or move toward online bargains.
For global observers, this episode illuminates wider trends in Chinese consumer markets: premiumisation without substantive differentiation is vulnerable, and retail theatrics can create short‑term buzz but not guaranteed loyalty. Brands that rely on expensive physical footprints and perceived social signalling will have to reassert the value behind their price tags or pivot to lower‑cost channels, clearer labelling and more transparent supply chains if they want to survive the next phase of China’s snack wars.