How Does Weiwei Soy Milk Fit Into the Broader China Story?

Weiwei Soy Milk announced a co-branded handmade beverage flagship store with the Summer Palace, unveiled on September 24 through the brand's official WeChat account in a post titled about the childhood favorite returning. The store's facade is modeled on a traditional imperial seal, with perforated panels forming Summer Palace landmarks in light and shadow. The company says it aims to expand to tens of thousands of stores.

Weiwei Soy Milk dates to the 1990s and carries nearly three decades of brand recognition, but the beverage market is crowded and cross-industry milk tea entries have a mixed record. Analysts point to Wahaha's earlier tea venture as a cautionary case. The history of coffee in China shows similar waves of new chains chasing rapid expansion, which makes the franchise plan and product lineup the real tests of whether the goal holds.

The once-national soy milk brand Weiwei Soy Milk has announced a co-branded handmade beverage flagship store with the Summer Palace, and plans to expand to tens of thousands of stores nationwide in the future. This cross-industry move has attracted widespread attention at a time when competition in the tea beverage market is white-hot. Can Weiwei Soy Milk break through by relying on the halo of childhood memories and guochao design, or will it repeat the mistakes of Wahaha's milk tea? This article analyzes store design, brand history, market environment, product series, and other aspects, and also focuses on its franchise strategy and future layout, offering a calm observation for coffee and beverage enthusiasts.

On September 24, Weiwei Soy Milk's official WeChat account published a post titled "The childhood internet celebrity returns to the Jianghu," officially announcing the opening of the country's first Weiwei Soy Milk flagship store. This classic brand hopes to make a fresh start, but to stand out among the many cross-industry milk tea brands, relying on nostalgia alone is clearly not enough. Weiwei Soy Milk chose to ride the new guochao trend and reached a co-branding partnership with the Summer Palace, thereby setting the overall style tone for the brand.

Official rendering

However, merely relying on one co-branding collaboration to claim a guochao style seems a bit thin. To truly integrate a national brand into traditional Chinese style, the overall design must be carried out from the inside out. First, looking at the flagship store's decoration style, according to the official introduction, the overall architectural shape of the store is based on a traditional seal, with design inspiration drawn from Emperor Qianlong's imperial seal. Through perforation techniques of different sizes and densities, the exterior facade outlines the landscape painting of the Summer Palace, presenting landmark structures such as the Seventeen-Arch Bridge and the Long Corridor in the form of light and shadow. The "qipao beauties" arranged at the opening ceremony were also a promotional segment carefully planned by Weiwei Soy Milk; they held milk tea and walked the runway for a product display.

"Weiwei Soy Milk, joyful and cheerful." As early as the 1990s, Weiwei Soy Milk had already entered the market. Over nearly thirty years since its establishment, the brand has also had a glorious period. With excellent quality and accessible prices, combined with the classic advertising slogan "Weiwei Soy Milk, joyful and cheerful" that aired in prime time for 15 consecutive years starting in 1993, Weiwei Soy Milk's image became deeply rooted in people's hearts and was once one of China's best-selling products, known as China's "King of Soy Milk."

So why did this brand, which accompanied a generation as they grew up, not continue to deepen its soy milk business? As an important option in traditional Chinese breakfasts, soy milk has always been popular. With the awakening of health awareness, local soy milk brands have continued to emerge, among which the better-known ones include "Doubendou," "Vitasoy," "Weiyi," and "Yonghe." In addition, because soy milk has a broad audience and a low entry threshold, many beverage brands have launched soy milk series as branch products. With too much competitive pressure in the soy milk track, transformation and development have become urgent.

Weiwei Group has tried cross-industry ventures in many fields such as food, dairy beverages, alcohol, grain and oil, and tea, but its performance has not been particularly impressive. The handmade beverage store is its latest attempt. However, the precedent of Wahaha's setback in cross-industry milk tea seems to have sounded a warning bell for Weiwei Soy Milk: the halo of childhood memories cannot guarantee sales.

In the current tea beverage market, even leading brands such as Heytea, ChaPanda, and Naixue's Tea are constantly seeking differentiated development. Facing such fierce competition, will Weiwei Group repeat Wahaha's mistakes, or will it strive to catch up? Zhao Huiqing, general manager of Weiwei Group, said at the opening ceremony: "To cater to young people's consumption habits and characteristics, the Weiwei Soy Milk flagship store will use soy milk entirely as the base, then adjust it with various flavors to achieve both health and deliciousness."

Zhao Huiqing expects to open 300 stores this year first, reach 500 next year, and ultimately expand nationwide. It is reported that Weiwei Soy Milk currently has 600 franchisees, and its goal is to open tens of thousands of milk tea stores. When a Beijing Business Today reporter consulted as a prospective franchisee, the person in charge of Weiwei Soy Milk's franchising revealed that franchise fees are relatively discounted during the National Day period, so the pace of store openings has clearly accelerated.

To gain a firm foothold in the tea beverage market, ultimately it still depends on the products themselves. Weiwei Soy Milk's milk tea stores currently have 5 product series: soy milk series, smoothie series, fresh fruit tea series, creative coffee series, and special blend series. Customer feedback is mixed; some netizens think the product taste and packaging are not impressive enough, while others think the product names and use of ingredients are quite creative.

From October 18 to October 24, Weiwei Soy Milk's handmade store was temporarily closed, with the official explanation being internal upgrades. It is hoped that this upgrade will bring product iteration and improvement. Data from Kamen shows that currently the only tea beverage brand with more than ten thousand stores nationwide is Mixue Bingcheng, and Mixue's core competitiveness lies in second- and third-tier cities. How Weiwei Soy Milk's milk tea stores will next design and lay out their position in the tea beverage track remains to be seen.

Image source: Weiwei Soy Milk WeChat account, Weiwei Soy Milk official website

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.