This fast food chain is now the world’s largest with a valuation of $10 billion. It’s not McDonald’s, KFC or Subway

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Mar 03, 2025 12:41 PM IST

With the name pronounced as “ME-schway,” the company’s 45,000 stores can be found across Asia and Australia.

China’s Mixue Ice Cream and Tea has become the world’s biggest food-and-beverage chain in terms of the number of locations, topping McDonald’s and Starbucks.

An ice-cream for a customer at a Mixue store in Beijing, China, on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025. Their Mixue Group, a food and beverage empire with more than 45,300 shops selling $1 bubble-tea, coffee and ice-cream, will debut in Hong Kong March 3 after a $444 million initial public offering, the city's largest this year.(Na Bian/Bloomberg) — An ice-cream for a customer at a Mixue store in Beijing, China, on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025. Their Mixue Group, a food and beverage empire with more than 45,300 shops selling $1 bubble-tea, coffee and ice-cream, will debut in Hong Kong March 3 after a $444 million initial public offering, the city’s largest this year.(Na Bian/Bloomberg)

With the name pronounced as “ME-schway,” the company’s 45,000 stores can be found across Asia and Australia, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.

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Mixue sells ice cream and sugary drinks for under $1, its roly-poly mascot named Snow King looks like a love child of Frosty the Snowman and the Michelin Man, and its stores have a jingle set to the tune of “Oh! Susanna,” according to the report.

It is now looking to raise up to $510 million in an initial public offering (IPO) which would value it at about $10 billion. Its stock will also begin trading in Hong Kong.

One of the reasons for the chain more than doubling its locations in three years is that its low-budget menu resonates in China which at the moment is grappling with an economic slump.

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Mixue was originally founded in 1997 by Zhang Hongchao in Henan, a Chinese heartland province. It started off selling shaved ice.

Its stores are now characterised by their bright red colour and being wedged next to phone-repair kiosks or dumpling shops.

Th menu includes the signature ice-cream cone, variations on bubble tea and a lemonade which made Mixue China’s largest buyer of lemons, according to the report.

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Mixue also charges below-average franchising fees and generates most of its revenue by selling supplies to franchisees, according to the report.