Shrimp Ball Hot Pot Buffet: Growth Logic & Supply Chain Variables

59 yuan/person shrimp ball buffet: Small-town youth achieve 'shrimp ball freedom' first?

Recently returning to my hometown, a second-tier small city in Hebei, I found several 'shrimp ball hot pot buffet' restaurants had opened.

Compared to ordinary hot pot buffets, this place is like a 'shrimp ball museum': from original shrimp balls to roe shrimp balls, mushroom shrimp balls, squid shrimp balls, and even dragon fruit shrimp balls — over a dozen varieties.

Besides shrimp balls, the store also offers chicken balls, beef balls, fish balls, etc., all neatly arranged in bamboo tube-shaped containers in the refrigerated cabinet, quite impressive.

In addition to shrimp balls, the store also has traditional items like beef/lamb, vegetables, mushrooms, as well as desserts, drinks, ice jelly, etc., typical of traditional hot pot buffets. Some stores even add pizza and other staples.

Of course, most customers come for the 'shrimp ball freedom'.

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

For example, Cijie Fresh-Made Shrimp Ball Buffet Old Hot Pot from Shijiazhuang, founded last year, now has 66 stores, reaching Shandong, Jilin, Jiangsu, etc. Another Hebei brand, Chengkebei Shrimp Ball Buffet Old Hot Pot, founded around the same time, has opened nearly 40 stores in Hebei, Shanxi, Heilongjiang, and Jilin.

Jianglaolao Shrimp Ball Seafood Hot Pot Buffet, which opened its first store in Zhejiang, now has footprints in 12 provinces, with 20 new stores just this year; established in 2018, Laoxiaoxian Shrimp Ball Seafood Hot Pot Buffet accelerated expansion last year, opening 40 new stores since 2025…

The category is so hot it even spread to South Korea. Recently, some netizens posted that South Korea now has shrimp ball hot pot buffets, with the 'bamboo tube + shrimp ball' setup identical to China's.

Why Shrimp Ball? Dual Drivers of Demand and Cost

The rise of shrimp ball hot pot buffets has several reasons.

On one hand, shrimp balls have increasingly wide application in the restaurant industry, already a classic hit in hot pot.

According to Mashangying offline retail monitoring data, in 2025, shrimp ball category sales grew 56.9% YoY, and sales volume grew 60.6%, the highest growth among frozen food subcategories.

In five provinces (Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Hunan, Guizhou), shrimp balls have successfully overtaken beef balls to become the top hot pot ball ingredient.

On the other hand, shrimp balls carry a premium perception, meeting customers' expectations of value.

Despite popularity, the price of this 'frozen dark horse' is not low. For example, a serving of Haidilao's signature large-grain shrimp balls (about 140g) costs 74 yuan. Even in supermarkets, a pack of Anjing shrimp balls costs about 16.5 yuan per 150g.

Correspondingly, eating a few servings of shrimp balls at a buffet can offset the 59 yuan ticket, and adding other items makes it easy to 'get your money's worth', quite tempting.

Most importantly, the shrimp ball upstream supply chain is increasingly robust, with production technology and output rising.

Take Daixiaji as an example, which focuses solely on shrimp balls. It spearheaded the drafting of the 'Shrimp Balls' group standard in 2023 and the 'Frozen Shrimp Balls' national standard in 2024. Now it achieves monthly sales exceeding 100 million yuan, with annual revenue surpassing 1 billion yuan.

For the restaurant industry, especially hot pot, the upstream supply chain is key to cost reduction, efficiency, and quality assurance. The rise of these shrimp ball supply chains has also opened the door for shrimp ball hot pot buffets.

Will It Become the Next 'Beef Rib Buffet'? Key is Differentiation

Will shrimp ball hot pot buffet become the next 'beef rib buffet'?

Chenzhi Big Data shows that in the past year, shrimp ball buffet store count grew from under 10 to over 500, mainly in lower-tier markets.

Creating differentiation with a hit-product buffet model and rapid store openings inevitably recalls the similar 'beef rib buffet'.

The latter rose quickly in H2 2024 and closed in bulk in early 2025, with some merchants losing over 2 million yuan in just three months.

Of course, unlike beef rib buffets that opened due to falling beef prices and closed as prices rose, shrimp ball costs are relatively controllable, especially with upstream supply chain development strengthening the foundation.

But note: ingredient cost was only the 'last straw' for beef rib buffets.

Another major reason for beef rib buffet decline was that most stores merely rode the 'beef rib' trend, failing to turn category heat into brand repurchase, eventually exiting a homogeneous market.

For these emerging shrimp ball hot pot buffet brands, challenges like brand differentiation, product innovation, and store operations remain. Whether they can scale long-term remains to be seen.