On a weekday afternoon in a shopping-centre basement, a woman named Luo (pseudonym) thought her 500-yuan membership card would cover a routine purchase of seeds and nuts. She left with a bag of sunflower seeds, walnuts, macadamias and a strawberry crisp — and a bill north of 400 yuan. Her surprise has become commonplace: shoppers are discovering that a casual handful of roasted seeds can push a till total into the high hundreds.
Brands such as Xueji Chaohuo (薛记炒货) and Qiwang Peanuts (琦王花生) have become shorthand on Chinese social platforms for conspicuous, unexpectedly expensive snack purchases. The firms are nicknamed “Xueji jewellery” and “Qiwang gold shops” because entry-level purchases often feel like luxury buys. Photos of half-filled bags and shocked receipts have proliferated on Xiaohongshu and Douyin, each post reinforcing the perception that cheaply conceived snacks are being sold as premium-lifestyle products.
Price lists in-store clarify why. Many items are priced by the 500-gram unit: common sunflower seeds sell for 23.8–26.8 yuan at Xueji and 19.8 yuan at Qiwang. Specialty nuts are markedly pricier — macadamias at 185 yuan, shelled pine nuts at 218 yuan, walnut kernels at 188 yuan at Xueji; Qiwang lists roasted cashews at 78.8 yuan and walnut kernels near 199 yuan. By contrast, pork is trading at roughly 10 yuan per jin (500g) in wholesale markets, meaning a kilogram of certain seeds can now cost more than meat.
The premium is intentional. Both chains have expanded aggressively into malls, favouring B1 and B2 floors where footfall is dense and consumers expect curated retail experiences. Xueji operates more than 1,200 outlets and Qiwang over 800; a recent dataset shows 73.9% of Xueji stores and 93.2% of Qiwang outlets sit inside shopping centres. Higher rents, conspicuous store design, staff headcounts and daily roasting rituals are all marketed as added value — and all add to costs.
Behind the scenes, the companies and their investors defend their pricing on grounds of ingredient sourcing, specialised roasting processes and in-store freshness. Private-equity backers have acknowledged high shelf prices while arguing raw-material and process costs are significant. But industry analysts note that these value propositions are hardly unique: other incumbents tout similar supply chains and slow-roast techniques. In practice, the largest spending is on converting commodity nuts into an aspirational, Instagram-ready product.
The business model has produced growth but shows strain. Both brands still open new stores, but the pace has slowed: Xueji cut openings from about 400 in 2022 to roughly 200 annually since, and Qiwang’s openings fell from over 300 in 2022 to fewer than 100 in 2024–25. Analysts link the slowdown to declining product allure amid fierce competition and a fading willingness among consumers to equate expensive snacks with social cachet.
Freshness claims are another fault line. Store signage and staff tout “freshly roasted” nuts, but spot checks by journalists found that only a subset of lines were roasted on the same day and many products bore earlier production dates. Distribution and inventory practices — frozen raw nuts delivered in batches and thawed before roasting — weaken the “made-to-order” promise. That gap between marketing and reality risks undermining the premium consumers are asked to pay and could amplify reputational and regulatory pressure as shoppers demand clearer labelling and provenance.
For international observers, this episode illuminates broader shifts in Chinese consumption. The snacks sector demonstrates how experience-driven retail and influencer amplification can turn basic goods into high-margin lifestyle items — until the consumer recognition of value fails to keep pace with price. How these chains adapt — by improving transparency, trimming expansion, or recalibrating price points — will determine whether they remain mall staples or become cautionary tales about the limits of premiumisation.