Economic Observer reporter Zheng Yuxin, intern Fan Xingqi

Takeout was once a business that many restaurant owners voluntarily chose not to do.

Chef Fei once publicly stated that he only eats in person and not takes out food, and wants to leave the best taste for customers who come to dine in. The true cry of Liu Jingjing, founder of Jiahe Yipin, in July 2025, expressing the helplessness of countless catering professionals who are being dragged into the subsidy war and their profits constantly squeezed. These voices were once an attitude of the catering industry towards food delivery: dine in restaurants can maintain their brand and gross profit, while food delivery earns "hard-earned money" and can easily impact the positioning of dine in restaurants.

But the 'food delivery war' in the summer of 2025 has rewritten the answer to this multiple-choice question, with subsidies and traffic pushing a large number of consumers online. Zhang Junjie, founder of Bawang Tea Ji, reflected afterwards that the company underestimated the impact of the price war on offline consumption on food delivery platforms, and "basically delayed for half a year in 2025". The cost of persisting in not participating in the war is that in the fourth quarter of 2025, the average monthly GMV of a single store in the Greater China region of Bawang Tea Ji decreased by 25.5% year-on-year, and the net profit attributable to the parent company for the whole year decreased by more than 50%. A group of dining brands such as Grandma's Home, Jinwanwan, and Huda, which originally held a wait-and-see attitude towards external sales, have begun to enter the market and layout. Their "satellite stores" and multi platform strategies have extended their business radius to places where dine in services cannot reach.

The shift in mindset has resulted in solid numbers in the financial report for the first half of 2026. On August 28th, with the release of financial reports by Jiu Mao Jiu, catering companies have successively released financial reports in the past two months, among which the takeaway business has generally achieved growth and driven revenue increase.

Haidilao's takeaway revenue was 2.051 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 121.2%, which was included in the financial report as the "fastest-growing business sector", with the revenue proportion jumping from 4.5% to 9.2%. The revenue from small noodle delivery increased from 129 million yuan to 242 million yuan, accounting for 25.8% of the group's total revenue. Green Tea Group's takeaway revenue increased by 24.1% to 651 million yuan, contributing nearly a quarter of the revenue.

Once despised as a food delivery service, it has now become one of the few bright spots amidst a slowdown in the growth rate of the catering industry to 2.8%.

Takeout Revenue Skyrockets

A year ago, the food delivery battle reached its peak around August 2025, pushing the daily order volume of the entire market from 80-90 million to over 200 million. For catering businesses, it may seem like orders have skyrocketed and revenue has doubled, but a large number of brands have been caught up in price wars, and dine in experiences have been squeezed by platform takeaway orders. The Chinese Cuisine Association later summarized it as "food delivery price inversion": subsidies make food delivery prices lower than dine in prices, consumers turn online, but restaurants still have to bear rent, labor, and high platform fees.

After experiencing a crazy 2025, after subsidies have subsided, the investment of catering enterprises in takeout will continue to increase in 2026.

From the perspective of corporate statements, Haidilao referred to food delivery as the "fastest-growing business segment" during the reporting period, and stated that it will continue to expand its diversified channels such as food delivery, enrich its product structure, and improve performance efficiency. Encountering Xiaomian in the financial report sees the increase in daily average orders per store after the price reduction as a reflection of the effectiveness of the strategy; Xiao Caiyuan expressed a greater emphasis on "quality takeaway".

The takeaway revenue of Meet Xiaomian, Haidilao, and Green Tea Group increased by 88.1%, 121.2%, and 24.1% year-on-year, respectively. Among them, Haidilao's food delivery revenue reached 2.051 billion yuan in half a year, doubling year-on-year.

Not only is there a year-on-year growth, but the proportion of takeaway to revenue is also increasing. The takeaway revenue of Green Tea Group increased by 24.1% to 651 million yuan, accounting for 24.3% of the total revenue. Food delivery has contributed nearly a quarter of the revenue.

In the first half of 2026, the revenue from food delivery business was 523.8 million yuan, an increase of 4.9% compared to the same period in 2025, which was 499.1 million yuan. The proportion of food delivery revenue to total revenue increased from 18.1% to 21.9%. Jiu Mao Jiu Fang stated that the growth is mainly due to the increase in traffic on food delivery platforms, the expansion of the single meal product line for food delivery, and the optimization of operational efficiency.

For enterprises with a high degree of product standardization and fast delivery speed, takeaway seems more likely to form a scale. In the first half of 2026, the revenue from small noodle delivery increased from 129 million yuan to 242 million yuan, accounting for 18.3% of the group's total revenue and 25.8%. Takeout is no longer just a supplement to dine in services, but also an important source of revenue growth.

There are more issues that dining enterprises need to consider. Hotpot and Chinese style meals not only sell dishes, but also rely heavily on the store environment and service experience. If there are too many takeout orders, it may occupy the kitchen and dining capacity, thereby affecting dine in customers.

Cost account of takeaway

After the growth of takeaway revenue, whether this business is cost-effective depends on how much cost the enterprise has paid for it.

For enterprises that rely on third-party platforms, order growth often leads to an increase in platform service fees, delivery fees, packaging fees, and marketing expenses. The financial reports of Xiaomian and Green Tea Group show two different situations.

In the first half of the year, the service fees of third-party food delivery platforms such as Xiaomian Pay increased by 71.6%, which was lower than the growth rate of 88.1% in food delivery revenue. According to financial report data, the proportion of platform service fees to takeaway revenue has decreased from approximately 23.7% to 21.6%.

The situation of Green Tea Group is opposite to the previous one. Its food delivery business expenses increased by 32.7%, higher than the growth rate of 24.1% in food delivery revenue; The proportion of takeaway business expenses to takeaway revenue has increased from approximately 16.7% to 17.9%.

Despite the growth in takeaway revenue, the related expense ratio for small noodles has decreased, while the cost pressure on Green Tea Group has increased.

Balancing takeout and dine in

For catering enterprises, although takeout increases revenue, it does not necessarily increase profits.

From the disclosed data, it can be seen that the revenue from food delivery is not always synchronized with the overall profit of the company. Haidilao's takeaway revenue increased by 121.2%, while its profit during the period only increased by 0.5%; Green Tea Group's takeaway revenue increased by 24.1%, while related expenses increased by 32.7%. This set of data cannot prove that food delivery directly causes changes in profits, but it can indicate that judging the performance of food delivery business cannot only rely on revenue growth rate.

In 2025, Wang Shugao, the chairman of the small vegetable garden, believes that takeout will affect dine in dining. In order to ensure the dining experience, the small vegetable garden will no longer participate in the platform's activities. The financial report shows that in the first half of the year, the dine in revenue of the small vegetable garden increased by 18.1% year-on-year, but the takeaway revenue decreased by 10.6% year-on-year, with the proportion dropping from 39% to 32.6%.

In 2025, Xiaocaiyuan introduced CIO Gao Heng from Alibaba to promote the digital and AI transformation of the Xiaocaiyuan store, attempting to break down the Chinese stir fry business that relies on chef skills into replicable and traceable data models.

In July of this year, the small vegetable garden split food delivery into leisure time and busy time, prioritizing the dining experience during peak hours and maximizing revenue during leisure time. Data shows that the actual delivery revenue in July increased by 22.5% compared to June, but the dine in meal time slightly increased from 8.06 minutes to 8.19 minutes, while the delivery time remained stable from 7.13 to 7.21 minutes.

Gao Heng used data to prove that making takeout does not affect dine in: while revenue increases, delivery capacity is almost unaffected. After seeing this data, Wang Shugao also put forward the requirement of paying attention to delivery quality, and the small vegetable garden installed cameras at the outlet to determine the level of food.

The management of the small vegetable garden introduced that in July, the delivery data began to improve. Meanwhile, dine in revenue increased by 29.9% year-on-year, outperforming the store growth rate of approximately 23%.

Haidilao's approach is to try to separate the delivery and dine in scenes as much as possible. On the one hand, the company has launched products such as "serving meals" that are more suitable for individual dining and daily meals; On the other hand, building self built delivery stations can improve delivery efficiency and reduce the crowding out of store kitchen production capacity by delivery orders. During the reporting period, the proportion of Haidilao's takeaway revenue increased from 4.5% to 9.2%.

The decrease in unit price per customer is the norm

In the first half of the year, price reduction remained the main theme.

The small vegetable garden has initiated proactive price reductions since the end of 2025. Wang Shugao said that he actively lowered the price because he believed there was still room for price reduction in the dishes, and he wanted to further benefit consumers to achieve "price for quantity". For example, the price of the signature stinky mandarin fish has dropped from 128 yuan to 108 yuan, and it has now dropped to 98 yuan. The price of large and small Braised pork belly has also been reduced from 65 yuan and 45 yuan to 49 yuan and 39 yuan today. The average consumption per person in the small vegetable garden has decreased from 57.1 yuan to 50.5 yuan, and the turnover rate has increased from 3.1 times to 3.5 times.

Su Xuxiang, co-founder of Xiaomian, introduced to reporters that he actively reduces the prices of dishes and provides customers with a more affordable dining experience. According to the calculation based on store management standards, the profit per order for small noodles encountered in the first half of 2026 is only 1.7 yuan.

Starting from 2022, Xiaomian has proactively lowered its product prices. According to its annual financial reports and IPO prospectus, the average customer price of Xiaomian's direct operated stores has decreased by over 21% from 2022 to 2026. In the latest released first half of 2026 performance, this price reduction trend is still continuing. The average consumption of orders from Xiaomian's direct operated stores decreased from 31.8 yuan to 28.6 yuan, a decrease of 10.1%; The daily average order volume increased from 371 to 388.

Not all companies have experienced changes such as a decrease in unit price and an increase in turnover rate.

The per capita consumption of restaurants in Green Tea Group increased slightly from 58.0 yuan to 58.5 yuan, but the turnover rate decreased from 3.1 times to 2.9 times, and same store sales decreased by 9.7% during the same period.

The per capita consumption of Taier under Jiumao Jiu has increased from 73 yuan to 74 yuan, and the average daily sales of the same store have increased by 7.4% year-on-year. The per capita consumption of hotpot customers has increased from 99 yuan to 106 yuan, while the average daily sales of the same restaurant have decreased by 22.9% year-on-year. The per capita consumption of Jiu Mao Jiu has increased from 57 yuan to 58 yuan, and the average daily sales in the same store have decreased by 11.8% year-on-year.

(Author)