Huge back taxes combined with a wave of store closures, ST Juewei enters a turbulent autumn

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In 2025, Juewei Foods reported its first annual loss since going public.

Annual operating revenue was 5.467 billion yuan, down 12.6% year-on-year; net loss attributable to shareholders was 191 million yuan, turning from profit to loss; net profit after non-recurring items was 75 million yuan, still a year-on-year decrease of 62.8%.

This cliff-like decline stems from a one-time retrospective correction for past compliance violations.

In April 2025, Juewei announced it needed to pay back taxes and late fees totaling 342 million yuan, most of which was recorded as a current-period expense, leading to a substantial increase in non-operating expenses.

Combined with prior financial information disclosure violations, the company was subjected to an "other risk warning" in September 2025, and its stock ticker was changed to "ST Juewei".

Horizontally comparing to peers, Juewei’s pace of recovery is significantly slower.

The braised food sector is undergoing a channel restructuring. New channels such as discount snack stores and instant retail in supermarkets are capturing part of the demand with lower prices and higher frequency. The annual report also clearly points out that the industry is shifting from "channel-driven" to "product-driven", competition is becoming more homogeneous, and the risk of overcapacity is rising.

In an environment of weakening demand and dispersed customer flow, Juewei's previously relied-upon model of tens of thousands of franchise stores has instead become a "double-edged sword", causing declines in channel efficiency to quickly impact revenue.

Although Juewei stopped disclosing the number of stores in its 2024 annual report, data from third-party platform Narrow Gate Restaurant Eye shows that its store count has shrunk by about one-third from a peak of over 15,000 at the end of 2023.

By comparison, some peers have achieved temporary stabilization or improvement through product portfolio optimization, channel diversification, or pricing adjustments.

Zhou Hei Ya’s revenue in 2025 grew by 3.5% year-on-year, with net profit jumping nearly 60%; Huangshanghuang expects its net profit to double. Juewei, however, remains the only “big three” braised food company yet to recover.

Another noteworthy change is that Juewei’s role in the industry chain is subtly shifting.

From a business structure perspective, aside from braised food sales, the company is also engaged in franchise management, centralized procurement, and supply chain logistics.

In 2025, revenue from centralized procurement dropped 38.39% year-on-year, while supply chain logistics revenue instead rose 20.14%, making it the only business segment to grow.

According to the annual report, the company’s largest sales customer was the emerging braised food brand Wang Xiaolu, accounting for 1.96% of annual sales.

Facing these difficulties, Juewei has introduced several countermeasures in its annual report: promote store restructuring and upgrades, extend from duck byproducts to full product categories; build a digital and intelligent operation system to improve single-store efficiency.

However, the market pressure had not subsided as of 2026. First-quarter revenue dropped 16% year-on-year to 1.265 billion yuan, with net profit attributable to shareholders declining more than 40% year-on-year.

For this former “Duck King,” it will still take a long time to emerge from the shadows.

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