Year 2021 saw lemon prevail tea drinks. At certain points of time lemon-based drinks fueled 400% growth by sold units and revenue. Lemon Republic, Ningji Tea, LINLEE ... challenger start-ups swiftly seized the opportunity and rode the waves of consumers craving for a new category. With some giants joining the game—Coca-Cola, Nongfu Spring, Xiang Piao Piao—the "second growth curve" is taking shape.

Grabbing a trend is grabbing an opportunity of building a new business. What is the next big thing? What could be the next "lemon" for the food and beverages sector?

Market Zero is where new categories can establish themselves and grow. CAT FOUR COFFEE positioned itself as Yunnan local coffee, then become the first brewing coffee brand in the TikTok E-commerce platform. KaiCha, with its experience as a digital products distributor, decided to launch its first unsweetened tea drink fully offline. Now it ranks 8th in the market share of China's unsweetened tea. JiǎnFǎ Wheat selects the alkaline bread category and sold 300 million yuan in 2023, making it a dark horse brand for annual growth marked by Oceanengine

What are the learnings from their alternative approaches? How to find the market zero as efficiently as they did?

B2B suppliers all have a dream of creating a B2C brand. However, it requires not only brand building but also considering the transformation of consumption scenarios and product adaptation.

Daixiaji has deeply explored the shrimp paste supply chain and penetrated the home dining scene through e-commerce platforms, achieving nearly 1 billion in scale within 3 years and over 100 million in B2C sales within 1 year. In a field where there were categories but no brands, Daixiaji earned Sullivan's certifications for "China's Number One Shrimp Paste Sales" and "China's Top Shrimp Paste Brand."

Man proposes, God disposes. Finding the product that is "meant" to rock is the first step of creating "the next big thing." 

Founded less than two years,  Yikeda™ has become the TOP1 in the tomato category on Tmall with 40+% repurchase rate and 60+% market share for cherry tomatoes. Relying on intelligent agricultural production system and the establishment of stringent fruit grading standards, Yikeda™ has successfully branded tomato products and redefined the category.

What kinds of businesses are global entrepreneurs running now? How do their products break through technological, market or regulatory constraints and lead the trends in the field of food and beverage?

FBIF invite entrepreneurs with different backgrounds to present their impressive breakthrough cases.

The success of entrepreneurial projects can not be separated from the discovery and support of investors.

What are the potential "good ideas" that investors are looking for? How do investors incubate them to the center of attention In different market contexts?

Starting a business requires a good idea, a coordinated team, a tight plan and enough start-up capital. What's more, it requires optimism and an indomitable heart to face the possibility of failure.

Challenge has no border. Global entrepreneurs come together to talk about their startup stories.

When investors regain calmness, the hype around new consumption subsides and startups move back to the fundamentals of business. What are the fundamentals of business? Make products that consumers need, build solid and robust supply chains, rebuild brand value, improve distribution networks, and stay motivated and self-reliant. For entrepreneurs, this is the true path to find their aspirations and build excellent brands.

Is the New onsumer model defined by "asset-light + heavy operation"? A light frontend and robust Backend might be the key to navigating the era of cost-effectiveness.

Focus on One Dog Doge, the Shumai Brand with manufacturing-distribution-retail integration. Faced with competition from white-label products and the risk of formula leaks from OEM factories, One Doge reduced live streaming investments to control marketing costs while retaining profitable channels. Despite significant expenses, they built their own factory to refine product quality and expand their B2B OEM business. Now it has surpassed 200 million yuan in sales and become the top1 in the Shumai sub-category on Tmall for 2023. Even if the cost is huge, why did they choose to build their own factory?

Traditional e-commerce, live streaming, private domains, premium supermarkets, overseas expansion......Behind the rise of each new brand lies its area of expertise. However, as the cost of acquiring traffic increases, competition intensifies within individual channels, and growth slows down, new consumer brands can no longer afford to place all their resources in one "basket" to navigate through business cycles.

DUJOSOO, a healthy light food brand, started with the internet, quickly launched new products to expand its SKU, and used targeted strategies to explore the "dividends" of various online channels to achieve rapid growth leading. Entering its eighth year, the brand is now focusing on offline expansion and overseas markets, embracing an omnichannel approach. After surpassing the $1 billion revenue mark, how does DUJOSOO's founder, Guoyu Zheng, view the current channel opportunities?

At FBIF2021, Fairiemor's founder, Wang Zhengqi, once shared that "it's very difficult to create new brands by only doing e-commerce." Looking back at the convenience food track in 2024, after moving past the "one-person meal", many brands that once thrived on the internet have faded into obscurity. Convenience food entrepreneurs need to find the next growth point. Fairiemor, which had early on established offline channels, still ranked first and second in the self-heating rice and self-heating hot pot markets in Q1 of 2024, relying on a solid network of distributors and a robust offline pricing system to pursue long-term brand building.

In 2024, FBIF has invited Fairiemor's founder, Wang Zhengqi once again: In a market that requires deep exploration, how can food and beverage startup brands compete with traditional giants and build their own channel organizational capabilities?

Running a bakery chain is an "attractive" business, but surviving amidst intense competition and uncertainty requires entrepreneurs to resist the temptation of rapid expansion. In the heavily reshuffled baking market, Babatang has focused on the overlooked category of toast. By offering niche, high-moisture handmade toast, they created differentiation and captured the minds of consumers. At the same time, they established factories and optimized the supply chain, allowing for stable expansion. This strategy has resulted in opening stores in 182 cities, securing billions in financing, and achieving over 600 million in revenue.

FBIF invited Cao Guoliang, founder of Babatang to share: How did the steadily growing Babatang pave a unique path of counter-trend expansion that is difficult to replicate?

In 2020, Gebiliunainai's limited edition buffalo milk was launched, with 10,000 boxes selling out within 24 hours during the pre-sale,

From 2021 to 2022, Neighbor Liu's cumulative sales scale increased tenfold year-on-year,

In 2024, the new A2mini milk reached over 10 million yuan within 48 hours of its launch, becoming the top-selling milk product on Douyin.

Starting from scratch to develop the buffalo milk and A2Mini formula, how did Gebiliunainai, through consumer insights based on human nature, years of R&D accumulation, and an extreme pursuit of user experience, develop differentiated dairy products and establish a competitive edge in the highly concentrated dairy market?

A high-performing startup team may struggle to adapt during a transition phase: any turbulence can amplify existing organizational issues, making the transition even more challenging and exacerbating existing problems. On the other hand, a resilient organization is able to swiftly and agilely pivot amid uncertainties and risks, helping businesses survive cycles.

FBIF invites Freeman Xu, the Partner of Coostrategy with more than two decades of HR experience in multinational companies and local Internet startups. Join us and clear your doubts through talks with him.

Founded in 2021, Ningji signed nearly 3,000 stores in three years and secured hundreds of millions in funding from ByteDance, Shunwei Capital, and Tencent. Competing fiercely in the lemon tea market, Ningji achieved unparalleled growth. According to co-founder Amanda Wang, their true competitive edge lies in talent accumulation and organizational development. 

This year, FBIF invites Amanda Wang to discuss how entrepreneurs can create long-term talent development plans and build their own "human resources bank."

Once involved in the "price war", entrepreneurs have to compromise their product quality, even selling at a loss, ultimately leading to a lose-lose situation. However, the frozen food brand Royal Xiao Hu has successfully navigated this challenge by completing a virtuous cycle: identifying user needs to boost sales - scaling orders to reduce costs - offering high quality and low price to enhance repurchase rates. Now Royal Xiao Hu has achieved sales exceeding 1 billion and secured the top spot for grilled sausage sales across the entire platform in just two years.

To apply Xiaomi's explosive product methodology to the food market, how can Royal Xiao Hu, committed to "value productism", further elevate its repurchase rate and win by efficiency?

In 2021, Songxianxian was swept up in the influencer live-streaming trend and was forced into the spotlight due to an streaming incident. By 2023, Songxianxian had achieved profitability for two consecutive years, with a year-on-year growth of 300%. Its user base exceeded ten million, ranking first in the seasoning category on Tik Tok, and in the chicken essence categories on Tmall and JD.

Once a company falls into difficulty, reversing the situation can be extremely challenging. How did Songxianxian manage to establish a category of matsutake mushroom seasoning, turn losses into profits and become a leading brand in the healthy seasoning industry?

From its inception, ELECTRO X decided to cater to the "sports crowd" market. They concentrated their resources where this demographic is prevalent: focusing on first-tier and new first-tier cities with a high concentration of sports enthusiasts, entering premium supermarkets and convenience stores, partnering with gyms, sports centers, five-star hotels, sports brands and professional events, and integrating into the lifestyle of sports enthusiasts. In less than three years since its founding, ELECTRO X has completed three rounds of financing, achieving monthly sales in the millions and experiencing rapid growth in the crowded beverage market.

FBIF invited Li Yu, founder of ELECTRO X, to discuss how a startup with limited resources concentrate on a core positioning and achieve growth through "focus."

Endless West is the first company to introduce molecular brewing technology to spirits. By identifying key flavor and aroma molecules (or notes) and then extracting them from more efficient natural sources, including plants, fruits, and yeast, they have revolutionized the process.

Here, brewing is done by computers, not barrels. With the maturation of this technology, whiskey that would traditionally require 10 years of aging in a barrel can now be "brewed" on Endless West's production line in just 24 hours.

However, drinking spirits has never been solely about the alcohol itself. In an industry that places such a high value on culture, atmosphere, and ritual, how far can "quantum tech" go? What else can Endless West bring to the industry through molecular brewing?

（Source: instagram@endlesswest）