The barbecue market will exceed 280 billion yuan, with ingredient upgrades becoming a new industry trend

Recently, the Red Restaurant Industry Research Institute and Unilever Food Planning jointly released the “Barbecue Industry Development Report 2026.” The report shows that by 2025, the national barbecue market size has reached 268 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.3%. It is estimated that the barbecue market size will further expand in 2026, exceeding 280 billion yuan.

While the market size is showing a growth trend, competition in the barbecue track remains very fierce. This is especially evident in the changes in the number of barbecue stores. Data from Qichacha shows that from January 2023 to February 2026, the number of barbecue stores nationwide first increased and then decreased, reaching a peak of 517k stores in September 2024. However, by February 2026, the number of barbecue stores had fallen to 409k, a decrease of 20.9 percentage points from September 2024.

To strengthen their competitive barriers, a number of barbecue brands (stores) are upgrading and focusing on ingredients.

According to the “2026 Catering Consumption Survey” by the Red Restaurant Industry Research Institute, “ingredient quality and freshness” rank among the top four key considerations for barbecue consumers when choosing a restaurant. To meet the rising demand for fresh and healthy ingredients, many barbecue brands are focusing on upgrading their ingredients, starting with “freshness.”

Taking the skewers brand Chuan Xiao Bai as an example. It is understood that to ensure ingredient freshness, Chuan Xiao Bai establishes a direct procurement supply chain, transporting raw materials such as beef tenderloin from牧场 (pasture) by air daily to stores. Additionally, to ensure the freshness of the products, Chuan Xiao Bai also adopts a “fresh skewering and grilling” self-selection mode. With the advantage of fresh ingredients, Chuan Xiao Bai is highly favored by consumers, having set records with queues exceeding 1,000 tables, and queuing of over a hundred tables is common in most of its stores.

Similarly focusing on ingredient “freshness” upgrade is the Chaoshan barbecue brand Xie Ji Da Shu Barbecue. Besides sourcing ingredients directly from their own牧场 (pasture) daily, Xie Ji Da Shu Barbecue also visualizes the “freshly sliced” process. It is understood that Xie Ji Da Shu Barbecue innovatively adopts a “bright kitchen and display + freshly sliced and grilled” mode, setting up a visible meat-cutting counter where fresh beef is hung in whole pieces, allowing customers to see the entire process of butchers cutting and plating meat on-site. According to Dianping, several Xie Ji Da Shu Barbecue outlets in Guangzhou rank among the top three in their local food circles, indicating high popularity.

Beyond emphasizing the “fresh” attribute, many other barbecue brands are exploring new ways to upgrade ingredients and create differentiated advantages by using regional特色 (specialty) ingredients, niche ingredients, or cross-track ingredients to launch innovative products.

For example, in exploring regional ingredients, Po Tan Guizhou Mountain Wild Griddle Barbecue uses特色 (specialty) ingredients from Yunnan and Guizhou, such as Guiyang glutinous rice sausage, colorful potatoes, and buttered porcini mushrooms. Because these precisely meet consumers’ curiosity about regional culinary culture, Po Tan Guizhou Mountain Wild Griddle Barbecue has gained popularity, with some consumers commenting: “Yunnan and Guizhou porcini mushrooms are also grilled,” and “Yunnan and Guizhou glutinous rice sausage can also be grilled, and the taste is pretty good.”

According to incomplete statistics from Red Restaurant Network, Northwest-style barbecue brand San Bao Barbecue launched Eight Treasures Grilled Pumpkin; Jinan barbecue brand Lao Jin Barbecue introduced grilled lamb eye, grilled lamb chest, grilled peanut sprouts, and grilled silkworm pupae; Shenzhen’s Tan Tang Barbecue offers grilled eel slices, grilled Northeast garlic, grilled duck intestines, and grilled quail. These novel and niche ingredients provide consumers with adventurous taste experiences, with many exclaiming “very special, full of experience.”

It is worth noting that, beyond upgrading individual ingredients, to provide consumers with more layered taste experiences, the “meat + vegetables/fruits” innovative combinations have also become an important direction for ingredient upgrades among barbecue brands.

For example, the wandering Bubble · Broken and Rotten Barbecue has launched creative products like “Pineapple stuffed fatty beef” and “Lime mint fatty beef,” combining common fatty beef with pineapple, lime, and mint in creative ways to create unique flavor layers, which are also favored by many consumers.

Currently, barbecue ingredients are characterized by “freshness, novelty, and奇 (strangeness).” According to the Red Restaurant Industry Research Institute, for consumers, the taste and quality of ingredients remain the core demands that cannot be shaken, and the barbecue track is no exception. Therefore, in the future, barbecue brands need to base their offerings on ingredient taste and quality, while also maintaining keen market insight to accurately capture changing consumer demands for ingredients, ensuring steady progress in fierce market competition.

Additionally, the Red Restaurant Industry Research Institute further pointed out that although ingredient upgrading is key for barbecue brands to achieve differentiated competition, the current catering consumption demand is accelerating and becoming more diverse. Not only ingredient quality, but also “cost performance” and “emotional value” have become important considerations for consumers when deciding whether to dine out. Therefore, to succeed in breaking through in the future, barbecue brands must precisely target these trend changes.

Author: Gui Xiang, Red Restaurant Network; Editor: Li Tang