Frozen foods surge as snacks and drinks slump in 2025 chain‑supermarket F&B review

Key findings and data source

Frozen foods emerged as the lone breakout winner in 2025 for China’s chain‑supermarket channel, while traditionally strong categories such as snacks and beverages suffered sharp declines. It has been reported that Mashangying (马上赢), working with retail trade media Retail Circle (零售圈), used its Brand CT and MSY150 balanced model to analyse nine major categories across hyper/supermarkets (HSM). According to that dataset, frozen food sales jumped to above +6% year‑on‑year — the highest growth among the nine — while leisure snacks fell roughly -15% and beverages swung from modest growth in 2024 to about -10% in 2025. The scope covers packaged, per‑unit goods only; loose, bulk, primary agricultural products and hot prepared foods were excluded.

Regional divergence and volume trends

The rebound in frozen goods was broad‑based: frozen items recorded positive volume growth (+3%+), and in some regions such as the Northeast sales growth exceeded 30%. By contrast, alcohol and beverages saw their volumes and sales retreat significantly — alcohol volume reportedly fell more than -10% year‑on‑year. Central China was the best performing region overall; North China posted the steepest multi‑category declines. It has been reported that Mashangying’s Brand CT covers over 300,000 brands, more than 10 million barcodes and in excess of 5 billion annual orders, giving the study both scale and deep regional granularity.

Inside the categories: winners and losers

Category‑level shifts are nuanced. Within snacks, biscuits and chocolate gained share even as total snack sales slid; konjac snacks and gift packs bucked the downtrend with strong share growth. In frozen, value‑added prepared items led — pizza, shrimp paste, frozen sausages and ready‑to‑heat meat products saw double‑digit gains — while traditional frozen staples such as dumplings, buns and wheat‑based items declined. In condiments, soy sauce remains dominant (>20% share) and showed resilience, while olive oil and fresh mushroom (松茸鲜) segments grew faster, reflecting selective premiumisation.

What it means for retailers

Why the pivot to frozen? Retailers and analysts point to changing at‑home consumption patterns, innovation in frozen prepared foods and SKU rationalisation in stores. Meanwhile, price sensitivity and the disappearance of some consumption scenes (for example package instant tea versus ready‑made milk tea) have hollowed out parts of snacks and instant drink categories. Against a backdrop of sluggish domestic consumption recovery and ongoing global trade pressures, it has been reported that chain supermarkets will need to rebalance assortments, lean into frozen supply chains and double down on regional assortment strategies to stabilize sales going into 2026.