59 Yuan/Person Shrimp Slide Hot Pot: Will It Become the Next 'Beef Rib Buffet'?

Recently, during a trip back to his hometown, a Caijing colleague discovered that a second-tier city in Hebei actually had several "shrimp slide hot pot" buffets.

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

Besides shrimp slide, the store also offers chicken slide, beef slide, fish slide and other "slide derivatives," all packed in bamboo tube-shaped containers displayed in rows in the cold cabinet.

In addition to shrimp slide, the store also offers traditional hot pot items like beef, lamb, vegetables, and mushrooms. Desserts, drinks, and ice jelly commonly found in hot pot buffets are also available. Some stores even add pizza and other staples.

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

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

For example, Cijie Freshly Made Shrimp Slide Hot Pot Buffet in Shijiazhuang, founded last year, now has 66 stores in Shandong, Jilin, Jiangsu, and other provinces. Another brand from Hebei, Chengkebei Shrimp Slide Hot Pot Buffet, founded around the same time, has nearly 40 stores across Hebei, Shanxi, Heilongjiang, and Jilin.

Jianglaolao Shrimp Slide Seafood Hot Pot Buffet, which opened its first store in Zhejiang, now has stores in 12 provinces nationwide, opening 20 new stores this year alone. Founded in 2018, Laoxiaoxian Shrimp Slide Seafood Hot Pot Buffet has accelerated its expansion since last year, opening 40 new stores since 2025.

The category is so hot that it has even become popular in South Korea. Recently, a netizen posted that South Korea also has shrimp slide hot pot, with the "bamboo tube + shrimp slide" setup identical to that in China.

Why Shrimp Slide? Reasons for the Rise of Shrimp Slide Hot Pot Buffet

On one hand, shrimp slide has found increasingly widespread use in the catering industry and has long been a classic item in the hot pot category.

According to data from the Mashengying offline retail monitoring network, shrimp slide category sales increased 56.9% year-on-year in 2025, with sales volume up 60.6%, making it the fastest-growing segment among frozen food subcategories.

In five provinces — Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Hunan, and Guizhou — shrimp slide has even "overtaken" beef balls to become the top hot pot meatball category.

On the other hand, shrimp slide inherently carries a premium image, meeting consumers' expectations of getting their money's worth.

Despite its popularity, the "frozen food dark horse" is not cheap. For example, a serving of Haidilao's signature large-grain shrimp slide (about 140g) costs 74 yuan. Even in supermarkets, a pack of Anjoy shrimp slide can cost 16.5 yuan per 150g.

Correspondingly, eating a few servings of shrimp slide at a hot pot buffet can offset the 59-yuan ticket price; adding other items makes it easy to "break even," making it quite enticing.

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

Take Daixiaji as an example: it focuses on the single category of shrimp slide, and in 2023 and 2024, it led the drafting of the group standard for shrimp slide and the national standard for frozen shrimp slide. It now achieves monthly sales exceeding 100 million yuan, with annual sales of over 1 billion yuan.

For the catering industry, especially the hot pot segment, the upstream supply chain is key to cost reduction and quality assurance. The rise of these shrimp slide supply chains has also brought opportunities for the emergence of shrimp slide hot pot buffets.

Will Shrimp Slide Hot Pot Become the Next 'Beef Rib'?

According to Chenzhi Big Data, in the past year, the number of shrimp slide hot pot stores has grown rapidly from less than 10 to more than 500, mainly in lower-tier markets.

Using a large single-item buffet model to create differentiation and opening stores quickly inevitably draws comparisons to the similar "beef rib buffet."

The latter surged in the second half of 2024, but saw mass closures in early 2025, with some merchants losing over 2 million yuan in just three months.

Of course, unlike beef rib buffets, which opened when beef prices fell and closed when prices rose, shrimp slide costs are relatively controllable. The development of the upstream supply chain also provides a solid foundation for this category.

However, it's worth noting that ingredient cost was just the "last straw" for beef rib buffets.

Another major reason for beef rib buffets' decline is that most stores merely rode the "beef rib" trend without turning category buzz into brand repurchase, ultimately exiting in a homogenized market.

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