Three Squirrels maintains steady revenue of ten billion, but why has its profit fallen by sixty percent?

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On the evening of April 28, the nut snack giant Three Squirrels released its full-year financial report for 2025.

Data shows that the company achieved an annual operating revenue of 10.189 billion yuan, down 4.08% year-on-year; net profit attributable to the parent company was 155 million yuan, a decrease of 61.90% year-on-year; net profit after deduction of non-recurring gains and losses shrank further to 49.4015 million yuan, a decline of 84.53%.

After experiencing the highlight moment in 2024 when revenue returned to 10 billion yuan, the annual report submitted by Three Squirrels feels heavy. This drastic shift in performance is not unique, but rather reflects the collective anxiety of traditional FMCG snack giants under the triple pressure of channel transformation, cost fluctuations, and stock competition.

Analysis shows that the decline in profit for Three Squirrels is mainly due to the dual squeeze from the cost side and strategic investments.

In terms of cost, in 2025, global prices for nut raw materials fluctuated sharply, especially for core categories like macadamia and cashews whose international procurement prices increased. As a "nut powerhouse", nuts accounted for about 47.34% of Three Squirrels' total revenue in 2025, slightly down from the previous year, but the fluctuations in raw material prices still directly pierced its gross profit margin.

In addition, 2025 marks a key year for Three Squirrels to transition to "high-end value for money," and investment also impacted profit.

It is understood that in 2025, Three Squirrels launched a new store format focused on its own brand—Lifestyle Pavilion—along with the construction of a central kitchen based on fresh and ready-to-make products. These upfront infrastructure investments and property depreciation significantly increased expense ratios in the short term, becoming a phase-wise deduction for profits.

However, the changes in its performance are also influenced by industry shifts. After all, the entire snack industry is undergoing a profound transfer of power.

Over the past decade, Three Squirrels rose thanks to e-commerce dividends. But as the cost of online traffic rises, rates haven't fallen but increased. The financial report shows that in 2025, online sales accounted for 70.43% of Three Squirrels' total sales. Such reliance on a single channel made them particularly passive as traffic dividends faded.

Meanwhile, value-retail snack shops represented by companies like Wancheng Group and Snack Busy are quickly reconstructing industry pricing standards. The value channel's logic of "removing brand premium, ultimate turnover, direct supply from the source" pushed traditional snack brands into the corner of price wars.

Comparing data shows that while traditional giants are under performance pressure, Wancheng Group's revenue grew by nearly 60% in 2025, and net profit attributable to the parent company soared by 3.58 times. This contrast indicates that consumers’ core demands have shifted from paying for brands to paying for ultimate value.

Faced with the impact of value-retail snacks, Three Squirrels did not sit idly by.

In 2025, the company firmly implemented a high-end value-for-money strategy, attempting to regain initiative through full-channel layout and deep vertical integration of the supply chain.

On the production side, Three Squirrels has established four major supply chain aggregation bases in East China, North China, Southwest, and South China, even extending overseas by setting up a dried mango factory in Cambodia. This shift from asset-light e-commerce to asset-heavy integrated manufacturing aims to lock in raw material prices through economies of scale and reduce circulation losses.

On the channel side, the newly launched Lifestyle Pavilion positions itself as "the second kitchen at your doorstep," with self-owned brands accounting for as much as 90%. Compared with traditional franchise stores, this model places more emphasis on fresh-prepared products and differentiation, attempting to avoid the homogenized benefits of value-retail snacks.

Overall, Three Squirrels' 2025 report is a typical transformation price sheet. Although net profit plummeted, it is worth noting that performance in Q1 2026 has already rebounded, with net profit attributable to the parent company reaching 273 million yuan in a single quarter, surpassing the total for 2025.

This sends a positive signal: after a year of strategic adjustments and cost pressure, Three Squirrels' "high-end value-for-money" model is starting to generate synergy in scale and efficiency.

However, in the long run, as the once "internet snack king," how to maintain a 10-billion-yuan scale while rebuilding its profit pricing power in the omni-channel era will still be a protracted tug-of-war. In an era of stock competition, there will no longer be easy growth; every bit of profit will test the company's ability to deeply cultivate its supply chain.

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