1.11 Billion Cups Sold and 51 New Products in Six Months: What Must Packaging Suppliers Deliver for Guming’s 10,000-Store System?

Guming’s strength lies not only in billion-cup volume and a 10,000-plus-store footprint, but in a replicable system built around product launches, coffee equipment, centralized procurement, and 24 warehouses. Packaging suppliers can enter a system of this scale only by delivering materials, manufacturing, distribution, and obsolete-inventory management as one integrated capability.

According to Guming’s 2026 interim results, the network comprised 14,351 stores as of June 30. In the first half, it sold approximately 1.11 billion cups of beverages and launched 51 new products, including 12 coffee beverages; around 13,500 stores had been equipped with coffee machines. Revenue reached RMB 7.47 billion, up 31.9% year on year; gross profit rose 39.6%, and adjusted profit increased 44.4%.

The network comprised 24 warehouses, approximately 277,000 square meters of warehousing space, and more than 82,000 cubic meters of cold-storage capacity, enabling on-demand delivery every two days to approximately 99% of stores. These cold-chain metrics cannot be treated as packaging-delivery performance, but they clearly illustrate the operating cadence that packaging must support.

Research source: Guming Holdings Limited | 2026 Interim Results Announcement

SECTION 01 · PROCUREMENT AND QUALITY

Packaging Is Already Part of the Central Quality and Procurement System

Guming’s 2025 Annual Report states that, to ensure consistent beverage quality, franchisees are required to purchase ingredients, packaging materials, and related equipment from the Group. Centralized procurement and supplier audits mean packaging is no longer a low-value consumable managed independently by each store.

Under the continuing connected-transaction framework between the company and Zhejiang Mingxing Packaging for 2025–2027, the covered items include insulated bags, plastic cups, paper cups, and cup lids. Pricing considers product type, quality, specifications, quantities, manufacturing costs, and market prices, with quotations from at least three independent suppliers used for comparison.

The caps are not actual expenditure, and this framework does not represent all of Guming’s packaging procurement. What it does reveal is the procurement language of a large chain: quality, specifications, volume, cost, and market-comparable pricing must all be satisfied at the same time.

Research source: Guming Holdings Limited | 2025 Annual Report

SECTION 02 · FIVE CAPABILITIES

Suppliers Must Put All Five Capabilities on One Operating Scorecard

Version control.Product codes must bind the beverage, size, temperature, cup body, lid, sealing film, artwork, campaign period, and store. Expired authorization or content changes must trigger a controlled production stop.

Consistency.Control dimensional tolerances, rim forming, stiffness, heat-sealing window, odor, abrasion resistance, and color variation, then verify leakage, drops, and stacking in the assembled pack.

Peak capacity.Document steady-state capacity, peak-shift capacity, artwork changeover time, yield, backup plants, and recovery time after disruption.

Multi-warehouse fulfillment.Use on-time delivery, mis-shipment rate, minimum replenishment lot, and batch traceability to prove that “nationwide availability” reaches the store.

Obsolete and residual inventory.At project launch, define forecast-error tolerance, the final replenishment date, reuse of common structures, residual-material disposal, and intellectual-property exit arrangements.

Initial forecasts, allocation by warehouse, actual sell-through, replenishment orders, stockouts, incorrect artwork, obsolete inventory, and complaint causes should be placed on one operating scorecard. Only then can the business determine whether a problem arose in forecasting, manufacturing, transportation, or in-store use.

SECTION 03 · PAPER-BASED MATERIALS MAP

Application Comes Before Paper Grade; the Final SKU Comes Before Any Material Conclusion

The following categories support packaging development and do not indicate what Guming actually uses. The correct sequence is to define the beverage or food application first, select the base paper or paperboard next, determine surface engineering and structure, and finally validate the finished SKU and its intended regional end-of-life pathway.

Research sources: National Health Commission standards catalogue; announcement issuing GB 4806.10—2025; TAPPI grease-resistance test methods; IMFA molded-fiber materials

SECTION 04 · MATERIAL OPPORTUNITIES

The Opportunity for Better Materials Must Show Up in Total System Cost

Under Guming’s 2025 ESG reporting scope, total finished-product packaging materials amounted to 5,700.18 tonnes, up approximately 20.8% year on year; packaging-material intensity per RMB 1 million of revenue fell from 0.54 tonnes to 0.44 tonnes, a decrease of approximately 18.5%. Total volume rose with growth while intensity declined, indicating that scale and material reduction can advance together. Because the company did not disclose the paper/plastic split, per-cup material weight cannot be calculated.

The company also disclosed efforts to expand the use of degradable and recyclable materials, optimize cup materials in selected regions in line with policy, use degradable materials for some takeaway bags, and reduce polypropylene use through improved material performance. Reusable turnover boxes and baskets are also used in the warehousing and distribution of fruit and other goods.

SECTION 05 · THE STRONGEST COUNTERARGUMENT

This Material Map Is Not Guming’s Procurement List

Guming did not disclose specific paper grades, basis weights, coatings, molded-fiber applications, per-SKU usage, or campaign-packaging volumes. The map above can only help the value chain understand potential applications and qualification gates; it must not be presented as materials the company already uses or plans to purchase.

Guming has demonstrated product-development and supply-chain capabilities at 10,000-store scale. The packaging industry’s task is to connect material capabilities to this growth using real BOM, batch, yield, delivery, and complaint data.

FROM THEORY TO EVIDENCE · LET THE DATA REVEAL THE ESSENTIALS

Good materials can enter a 10,000-store system only after becoming packaging that is manufacturable, allocable across warehouses, traceable, and reviewable.

Guming’s 1.11 billion cups sold in six months, 51 new products, approximately 13,500 coffee-machine-equipped stores, and 24-warehouse network demonstrate how a chain brand converts product innovation into scaled operations. Continued system expansion will create demand for more high-quality packaging and materials while shifting the supplier threshold from unit-price quotations to integrated execution.