Semiconductor Supply Chain Perspective: Why Shrimp Paste Buffet Hotpot Exploded and Expanded

¥59 per person shrimp paste buffet: town youth first to achieve 'shrimp paste freedom'? Recently, returning to my hometown, I found that a second-tier small city in Hebei had opened several 'shrimp paste buffet hotpot' restaurants.

Unlike ordinary hotpot buffets, this place can be called a 'shrimp paste museum': everything from original shrimp paste to fish roe shrimp paste, mushroom shrimp paste, squid shrimp paste, and even dragon fruit shrimp paste, with over a dozen varieties.

In addition to shrimp paste, there are also 'slurry derivatives' such as chicken paste, beef paste, and fish paste, all uniformly packed in bamboo tube-shaped containers, arranged in several rows in the freezer, quite spectacular.

Beyond shrimp paste, the store also offers traditional hotpot items like beef, lamb, vegetables, and mushrooms. Desserts, drinks, and ice jelly common in traditional hotpot buffets are also available. Some stores even add pizza and other staples.

Of course, most consumers come for the 'shrimp paste freedom.'

In fact, over the past year, a batch of chain shrimp paste buffet hotpot brands has emerged in Hebei alone, even successfully expanding to other provinces.

For example, Cijie Freshly Made Shrimp Paste Buffet Old Hotpot from Shijiazhuang, founded last year, now has 66 stores across Shandong, Jilin, Jiangsu, and other places. Another brand from Hebei, Chengke North Shrimp Paste Buffet Old Hotpot, founded around the same time, has opened nearly 40 stores in Hebei, Shanxi, Heilongjiang, and Jilin.

Jianglaolao Shrimp Paste Seafood Buffet Hotpot, which opened its first store in Zhejiang, now has locations in 12 provinces, with 20 new stores opened this year alone. Founded in 2018, Laoxiaoxian Shrimp Paste Seafood Buffet Hotpot accelerated its expansion last year, opening 40 new stores since 2025.

The category has become so popular that it has even spread to South Korea. Recently, netizens posted that South Korea also has shrimp paste buffet hotpot, with the 'bamboo tube + shrimp paste' setup identical to that in China.

Why Shrimp Paste: Demand Growth, Cost Recovery Expectations, and Supply Reinforcement

Shrimp paste buffet hotpot has emerged for several reasons. On one hand, shrimp paste is increasingly used in the food industry and has become a classic staple in the hotpot category.

According to data from the Mashiying offline retail monitoring network, sales of shrimp paste category in 2025 grew 56.9% year-on-year, with sales volume up 60.6%, ranking first in growth among frozen food subcategories.

In Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Hunan, and Guizhou provinces, shrimp paste has even surpassed beef balls to become the top hotpot ball material category.

On the other hand, shrimp paste naturally carries a premium quality, meeting consumers' expectations of value recovery. Despite its popularity, this 'frozen dark horse' is not cheap. For example, at Haidilao, a serving of signature large-grain shrimp paste (about 140g) costs 74 yuan. Even in supermarkets, a pack of Anjoy shrimp paste can cost 16.5 yuan per 150g.

In contrast, eating a few servings of shrimp paste at a buffet hotpot perfectly offsets the ¥59 ticket price, and adding other items makes it easy to 'get value for money,' which is quite tempting.

Most importantly, the upstream shrimp paste supply chain has become increasingly robust, with rising production technology and volume.

For instance, Daixiaji, focusing on the single category of shrimp paste, took the lead in drafting the 'Shrimp Paste' group standard and the 'Frozen Shrimp Paste' national standard in 2023 and 2024, and now achieves monthly sales exceeding 100 million yuan, with annual sales over 1 billion yuan.

For the catering, especially hotpot category, upstream supply chain is the core lifeline for brands to reduce costs and ensure quality. The rise of these shrimp paste supply chains has also opened up opportunities for shrimp paste buffet hotpot.

Will It Become the Next 'Beef Rib'? Key Not Only in Cost

Will shrimp paste buffet hotpot become the next 'beef ribs'? Chenzhi Big Data shows that over the past year, the number of shrimp paste buffet stores has rapidly grown from less than 10 to over 500, mainly in lower-tier markets.

Using a single-product buffet model to differentiate and rapidly opening stores inevitably reminds one of the similar 'beef rib buffet,' which rose quickly in the second half of 2024 and then saw mass closures in early 2025, with some operators losing over 2 million yuan in just three months.

Of course, unlike beef ribs which opened due to falling beef prices and closed when beef prices rose, shrimp paste costs are relatively controllable, especially with the development of the upstream supply chain strengthening the category's foundation.

However, it is worth noting that ingredient cost is just the 'last straw' for beef ribs. Another major reason for beef ribs' decline is that most stores merely latched onto the viral 'beef ribs' trend without converting category heat into brand repeat purchases, ultimately being eliminated in a homogenized market.

For these emerging shrimp paste buffet hotpot brands, challenges of brand differentiation, product innovation capabilities, and store operations management still exist. Whether they can achieve long-term scale remains to be seen.