Guoquan demonstrates exceptional capability in developing best-selling products. It offers over 700 SKUs spanning categories such as hotpot, barbecue, braised dishes, single-serve meals, quick Chinese dishes, beverages, and Western food — catering to diverse at-home dining scenarios and needs. Its procurement team travels deep into source locations, from remote highland farms to offshore aquaculture sites, tracing food origins and inspecting factories in person across China.

At Guoquan, consumers can enjoy products such as lamb rolls from Inner Mongolia, young bulls from Liaoning, beef tripe from Sichuan, pickled chili from Yunnan, abalone from Fujian, and white shrimp from Guangdong. Internationally, the company sources ingredients including baby octopus from North America, beef from Brazil, lamb from Australia, basa fish from Indonesia, and tom yum paste from Thailand — expanding its global food sourcing network.

Guoquan also collaborates with upstream factories to fine-tune ingredient quality based on consumer preferences. For example, to develop the signature product “Baiyu Crunchy Tripe,” the R&D team used steaming methods to reduce odor, kneading techniques to enhance appearance, and advanced enzyme swelling technology to lock in nutrients and create a crisp texture.

Food safety and quality are core to the company’s mission. Guoquan’s R&D and quality control team now exceeds 300 professionals, establishing a comprehensive end-to-end quality assurance system — from production and packaging to logistics and in-store management. Take Guoquan’s beef balls as an example: the production process includes eight strict steps — selection, cleaning, grinding, cooking, cooling, weighing, packaging, and inspection — ensuring food safety and a premium customer experience.

Besides being delicious, Guoquan’s products are also affordable, offering exceptional value for money. Through bulk purchasing, large-scale production, and efficient distribution, the company has significantly reduced supply chain costs, eliminated middlemen, and passed savings on to consumers — continuously optimizing cost structures for maximum consumer benefit.

In 2013, the founding team of Guoquan launched their first hotpot restaurant as a solution to the seasonal limitations of night market consumption. The concept quickly gained popularity. Through operating in the hotpot category, they identified a major pain point in the industry: disorganized upstream supply chains and asymmetric procurement information. To solve this, Guoquan pivoted from the B-end (business) to C-end (consumer), and in 2017, opened its first store in Zhengzhou, Henan, covering 10 major hotpot categories and over 400 SKUs. Guoquan's products were 40% cheaper than supermarkets and 10–15% cheaper than traditional wet markets, allowing customers to enjoy an authentic hotpot meal at home for under 50 yuan per person. With abundant food options and affordable prices, Guoquan quickly won the hearts of community consumers and pioneered a new dining scenario — enjoying hotpot and barbecue at home.

Starting in Zhengzhou, Guoquan shifted from a B2B ingredient supplier to a B2C meal solution provider, and this journey helped its founding team gradually clarify their mission: To bring quality Guoquan food to even the most remote communities. Today, nearly 50% of Guoquan’s stores are located in county-level cities and rural towns, and over 70% are in markets below the prefecture-level. With 1.4 billion people, over 2,800 counties, 40,000+ townships, and 690,000 administrative villages, more than 800 million people live in these lower-tier areas. By expanding into these markets, Guoquan is actively fulfilling its mission — serving a broader population across the country.

Through its 10,000-store chain, Guoquan has penetrated into rural counties, gaining first-hand insight into local consumer preferences. This deep market presence enables them to continuously innovate products that address people’s needs around “eating at home.” As a partner in Guoquan’s development, GenBridge believes that working alongside a 10,000-store nationwide channel like Guoquan helps accelerate innovation and implementation of new products, such as frozen food and ready-to-eat meals. Guoquan plays a crucial role as an offline distribution engine.

During the pandemic, Guoquan organized extensive in-store community marketing efforts — including sampling campaigns — to help new product categories gain traction with consumers. Additionally, Guoquan collaborated deeply with supply chain partners, using insights from retail stores to guide product R&D. For example, in the shrimp category, Guoquan worked directly with high-quality seafood producers in Beihai to co-develop retail-ready products like shrimp paste, shrimp balls, and shrimp patties — not only better satisfying consumer demand but also advancing market education, making these items into category-defining hits. Finally, the scale advantage of “10,000-store retail” significantly improves cost-efficiency. Affordable pricing is key to increasing market penetration. The national channel scale enables innovative new products to become high-value items that can enter millions of households.

Guoquan’s vast store network and its integrated supply-production-sales system also boost agricultural economies in rural areas by generating consistent procurement needs. For example, Wudu District in Gansu Province is a key sourcing region for Guoquan’s Sichuan pepper. Since Guoquan entered the area, local farmers have transitioned from small-scale planting to large-scale, scientific cultivation, gaining real and tangible benefits.

GenBridge Capital invested in Guoquan in early 2020, at the very beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak. We vividly remember that during the lockdowns, when cities were silent, Guoquan remained open, ensuring food supply and becoming a vital, warm presence in local communities.Over the past few years, Guoquan’s solutions for at-home dining have taken root in the public consciousness.

 Today, in a post-pandemic world, people are embracing more diverse and elevated at-home dining experiences — hosting hotpot parties in winter, campfire barbecues in summer, and in daily life, seeking meals that are higher quality, more convenient, and healthier. These seemingly ordinary yet deeply meaningful ingredients have become a vital part of everyday life.

China’s vast and deeply tiered market offers fertile ground for a new generation of 10,000-store retail chains. IPO is just a “graduation ceremony” along the entrepreneurial journey — Guoquan continues to iterate and grow.

GenBridge Capital looks forward to Guoquan reaching every province, city, county, township, and neighborhood across China, allowing more families to enjoy high-quality, affordable Guoquan meals — bringing happiness to dining tables across the country.