Will the CNY 59 Shrimp Paste Hot Pot Buffet Be the Next 'Beef Rib Buffet'?

CNY 59 per person shrimp paste hot pot buffet: small-town youth achieve "shrimp paste freedom" first?

Recently, a second-tier city in Hebei has seen several "shrimp paste hot pot buffets" open. Compared to regular hot pot buffets, these are like a "shrimp paste museum": from original to fish roe, mushroom, squid, and even dragon fruit shrimp paste, with over a dozen varieties.

In addition to shrimp paste, the stores also offer chicken paste, beef paste, fish paste, and other "paste derivatives," all packed in bamboo tube-shaped containers displayed in rows in refrigerated cabinets.

Besides shrimp paste, there are also traditional hot pot items like beef, lamb, vegetables, and mushrooms. Desserts, drinks, and ice jelly from traditional hot pot buffets are also available, with some stores adding pizza and other staples.

Consumers are mostly going for "shrimp paste freedom."

In fact, over the past year, a number of chain shrimp paste hot pot buffet brands have emerged in Hebei alone, successfully expanding beyond the province.

For example, Shijiazhuang's Cijie Freshly Made Shrimp Paste Hot Pot Buffet, founded last year, now has 66 stores reaching Shandong, Jilin, Jiangsu, etc. Another brand, Chengke North Shrimp Paste Hot Pot Buffet, founded around the same time, has nearly 40 stores across Hebei, Shanxi, Heilongjiang, and Jilin.

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

This category is so hot that it has even spread to South Korea. Some netizens posted that shrimp paste hot pot buffets have appeared there, with the "bamboo tube + shrimp paste" setup identical to that in China.

Why shrimp paste? There are several reasons for the rise of shrimp paste hot pot buffets.

First, shrimp paste has increasingly broad applications in the catering industry and is already a classic hot pot category.

According to MaxWin offline retail monitoring network data, in 2025, shrimp paste category sales grew 56.9% YoY, with sales volume up 60.6% YoY, the fastest growth among frozen food subcategories.

In Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Hunan, and Guizhou provinces, shrimp paste even overtook beef balls to become the top hot pot ball category.

Second, shrimp paste naturally carries a premium price tag, meeting consumers' expectations of getting value for money.

Despite being popular, this "frozen food dark horse" is not cheap. For example, at Haidilao, a serving of signature large-grain shrimp paste (about 140g) costs CNY 74. Even in supermarkets, a pack of Anjoy shrimp paste can cost CNY 16.5 per 150g.

Correspondingly, eating a few servings of shrimp paste at a hot pot buffet can easily cover the CNY 59 entry fee, making it tempting to also try other items.

Most importantly, upstream shrimp paste supply chains are increasingly robust, with expanding production technology and output.

Take Daixiaji as an example: it focuses solely on the shrimp paste category and led the drafting of the "Shrimp Paste" group standard in 2023 and the "Frozen Shrimp Paste" national standard in 2024. It now achieves monthly sales exceeding 100 million and annual sales over CNY 1 billion.

For the catering industry, especially the hot pot segment, upstream supply chains are key to cost reduction, efficiency, and quality assurance. The rise of these shrimp paste supply chains has also brought new opportunities for shrimp paste hot pot buffets.

Will shrimp paste hot pot buffet become the next "beef rib"?

Chenzhi Big Data shows that over the past year, shrimp paste buffet store scale rapidly grew from less than 10 to over 500 stores, mainly in down-market cities.

Using a single-category buffet model to create differentiation and rapidly opening stores brings to mind the similar "beef rib buffet."

The latter boomed in the second half of 2024 then saw mass closures in early 2025, with some merchants losing over CNY 2 million in just three months.

Of course, unlike beef ribs that capitalized on dropping beef prices and collapsed when prices rose, shrimp paste costs are relatively controllable, and upstream supply chain development also reinforces this category.

But ingredient cost was just the last straw for the beef rib "landslide."

Another major reason for the beef rib slump is that most stores merely rode the "beef rib" trend without converting category heat into brand repurchase, ultimately losing out in a homogenized market.

For these emerging shrimp paste hot pot buffet brands, challenges remain: brand differentiation, product innovation, and store operations management. Whether they can sustainably scale remains to be seen.