But Zhang Hongchao, now a billionaire several times over, has a quiet answer. In a rare 2023 interview, he said: “I don’t want to be the Apple of ice cream. I want to be the chopsticks of ice cream — everywhere, useful, and nobody thinks about it twice.”
The sign is unmistakable: a cartoon snowman wearing a red imperial crown, grinning like he knows a secret. The secret? You don’t need to be fancy to be unstoppable. In 1997, a young man named Zhang Hongchao opened a shaved-ice stall in Zhengzhou, central China. He had no investors, no marketing budget, and one broken freezer that thawed every afternoon. He sold bowls of sweet red beans over crushed ice for pennies. mixue icecream
But here’s the thing: . Affordable joy is the point. But Zhang Hongchao, now a billionaire several times
In a world where a scoop of premium gelato can cost a day’s wage in some countries, Mixue offers the same dopamine hit for pocket change. It’s the IKEA effect applied to dessert: you know it’s not the best, but you feel smart buying it. Mixue now faces the inevitable backlash of hypergrowth. Labor shortages in China, rising dairy costs, and competitors cloning its model (enter “Honey Snow” and “Sweet Snow” knockoffs). Western brands are slashing prices. And some customers are asking: Where does the lemon come from? The secret
That’s the real feature. Not a product. Not a price point. A .
What Zhang understood — before Harvard MBAs wrote case studies about it — is that . It’s a daily ritual for people who work hard. His customers weren’t Instagram foodies. They were students, taxi drivers, factory workers, and grandmas taking grandkids for a walk.
By 2006, he pivoted to soft serve. By 2020, Mixue had more outlets in China than McDonald’s and KFC combined . Today, it operates over across 11 countries, from Vietnam to Australia to the Philippines.
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