59 Yuan Shrimp Paste Hotpot: Can It Become the Next 'Beef Ribs Hotpot'?

59 yuan per person shrimp paste hotpot: Small-town youth achieve "shrimp paste freedom" first?

Recently, a reporter returned to his hometown and found that a second-tier small city in Hebei had opened several "shrimp paste hotpot" restaurants.

Compared to ordinary hotpot buffets, this place is like a "shrimp paste museum": from original shrimp paste to fish roe shrimp paste, mushroom shrimp paste, squid shrimp paste, and even dragon fruit shrimp paste—dozens of varieties.

Besides shrimp paste, the store also offers chicken paste, beef paste, fish paste and other "paste derivatives," all packed in bamboo tube-shaped containers and arranged in rows in the cooler.

In addition to shrimp paste, there are beef and lamb, vegetables and mushrooms, and other traditional hotpot items. Desserts, drinks, and ice jelly common in hotpot buffets are also available, and some shops even add pizza as a staple.

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

In fact, over the past year, a batch of shrimp paste hotpot buffet chain brands have emerged in Hebei alone, and some have successfully expanded to other provinces.

For example, Shijiazhuang-based Ci Jie Freshly Made Shrimp Paste Hotpot, founded last year, now has 66 stores, reaching Shandong, Jilin, Jiangsu and other places. Another brand, Cheng Ke Bei Shrimp Paste Hotpot, also from Hebei, has opened nearly 40 stores across Hebei, Shanxi, Heilongjiang and Jilin.

Jiang Lao Lao Shrimp Paste Seafood Hotpot, which opened its first store in Zhejiang, now has a presence in 12 provinces across the country, with 20 new stores opened this year alone. Founded in 2018, Lao Xiao Xian Shrimp Paste Seafood Hotpot has accelerated expansion since last year, opening 40 new stores since 2025.

The category is so hot that it has even spread to South Korea. Recently, netizens posted that shrimp paste hotpot is now available in South Korea, with the "bamboo tube + shrimp paste" configuration identical to that in China.

Why Shrimp Paste?

Shrimp paste hotpot's rise stems from several factors.

First, shrimp paste has an increasingly wide application in the catering industry and has long been a classic hotpot category. According to Malian Ying offline retail monitoring data, shrimp paste category sales grew 56.9% year-on-year in 2025, with sales volume up 60.6%, ranking first among frozen food subcategories.

In Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Hunan, and Guizhou, shrimp paste has even overtaken beef balls to become the top hotpot ball ingredient.

Second, shrimp paste carries a naturally premium connotation, meeting consumers' expectations of "getting value." Despite its popularity, the price of this "frozen dark horse" is quite high. For example, at Haidilao, a standard large-grain shrimp paste (about 140g) costs 74 yuan. Even in supermarkets, a pack of Anjing shrimp paste costs about 16.5 yuan per 150g.

Correspondingly, eating a few servings of shrimp paste at a hotpot buffet could perfectly offset the 59 yuan entry fee, and adding other items would allow customers to "break even," making it very appealing.

Most importantly, the upstream supply chain for shrimp paste is getting stronger, with increasing production technology and output.

Take Dai Xia Ji for example, which focuses on the single category of shrimp paste. In 2023 and 2024, it led the drafting of the "Shrimp Paste" group standard and the "Frozen Shrimp Paste" national standard. It now achieves monthly sales exceeding 100 million yuan and annual sales over 1 billion yuan.

For the catering industry, especially hotpot, the upstream supply chain is the core lifeline for cost reduction and quality assurance. The rise of these shrimp paste supply chains has also brought a turning point for the emergence of shrimp paste hotpot buffets.

Will Shrimp Paste Hotpot Become the Next 'Beef Ribs'?

According to Chenzhi Big Data, the number of shrimp paste hotpot stores has surged from less than 10 to over 500 in the past year, mainly distributed in lower-tier markets.

Using a single-product buffet model to create differentiation and opening stores rapidly in a short time inevitably reminds one of the similar "beef ribs buffet."

The latter rose quickly in the second half of 2024 and then saw mass store closures in early 2025, with some merchants losing over 2 million yuan in just three months.

Of course, unlike beef ribs, which surged as beef prices fell and collapsed when beef prices rose again, shrimp paste costs are relatively controllable, especially given the development of the upstream supply chain that has strengthened the category's foundation.

However, it's worth noting that ingredient cost was only the "last straw" for beef ribs.

Another major reason for the decline of beef ribs buffets was that most stores simply cashed in on the trending "beef ribs" without converting the category's popularity into brand repeat purchases, ultimately exiting the homogenized market.

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