Interface News Reporter | Lu Yibei
Interface News Editor | Xu Yue
Gu Ming is adding coffee and breakfast.
At the recent Partner Conference held at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center, Gu Ming revealed several new actions. The most crucial aspect is to continue to increase investment in coffee, with plans to invest an additional 400 million yuan to focus on the coffee category, and clearly position coffee as the second growth curve. At the same time, Guming has further increased its coffee revenue target from 10% -15% to 20% -25%.
Another action is breakfast. Guming plans to promote ovens in over 13000 stores nationwide in August, and the specific pace of implementation will depend on the wishes of franchisees. Previously, Guming had tested its breakfast business in thousands of stores in the Guangdong and Guangxi regions. Without large-scale promotion, a single store sold more than 25 baked goods per day, with an average daily turnover increase of over 200 yuan. In addition, Guming will continue to adjust its new store layout.
On May 25th, Interface News inquired with Gu Ming regarding the above matter, but Gu Ming stated that they would not comment.
Coffee and breakfast need to be watched together. The morning rush hour is an unavoidable scene for coffee to sell well; If only one bread is sold for breakfast, it is difficult to sustain consumers' purchasing reasons alone. Coffee with baking is more like a combination that office workers, students, and community consumers can easily buy in the morning.
More importantly, they all point to one thing that Guming has repeatedly emphasized in the past two years: increasing in store consumption and repeat purchases.
During the food delivery war in 2025, Wang Yun'an, CEO of Guming, made it clear that Guming wants to embrace dine in dining, and the ultimate goal of the freshly made tea beverage industry is "whoever buys again wins the world". At that time, Guming used low-priced new products to attract dine in customers. "Fresh Lemon Water" was only sold for 3 yuan, lower than the price of 4 yuan lemon water in Meixue Ice City, and the new product did not support ordering takeout.
This year, coffee and breakfast still follow the same approach: bringing consumers back to the store and allowing the store to do business during the previously relatively blank morning hours. The peak hours of tea shops are usually concentrated in the afternoon, afternoon tea, and evening, and in the morning it is actually a gap. During the mid year performance meeting in 2025, Wang Yun'an mentioned the breakfast project and stated that there has been a significant increase in the performance of the stores testing breakfast, as Guming had "no performance" during the breakfast period before.
Gu Ming will start exploring new store models from 2025. Image source: Guming official website
Gu Ming has been experimenting with coffee for a long time.
Around 2023, Gu Ming tested the "coffee+baking" combination in stores in Hangzhou and other places, mostly on a small scale. By 2025, coffee will become a standard feature in more stores. According to the financial report, as of the end of 2025, over 12000 Guming stores have been equipped with coffee machines and have launched 27 coffee drinks throughout the year.
At the same time as putting coffee machines in stores, Guming also leveraged consumers with basic styles such as American style and latte, as well as low-priced promotions, amidst the cracks of Luckin Coffee. In June 2025, Guming invited Daniel Wu as its coffee quality partner and launched a limited time promotion of "8.9 yuan for all coffee", using a lower threshold to make consumers accept the idea that "Guming also sells coffee".
From the existing data, Gu Ming did see reasons to continue investing. Wang Yun'an previously mentioned at the performance meeting that in the first half of 2025, the number of coffee stores operated by Guming will be limited, and the coffee business will truly start from the end of September and October 2025, with a daily average sales volume of 70-80 cups per store by the end of the year.
He also pointed out that last year, the main sales of Guming Coffee came from basic models, which helped establish a mindset of affordable and high-quality products; This year, we will focus on addressing the question of 'who am I' by launching differentiated products.
But coffee machines are not free to enter the store. A franchisee of Guming told Interface News that one Guming coffee machine costs around 75000 yuan. This is a solid upfront investment for franchisees, which ultimately depends on how many cups a single store sells per day, how long it covers equipment depreciation and operating costs.
A more practical problem is that coffee machines, ovens, and baking displays all require new operating and display spaces. If the old store style bar counter is compact and the flow line is narrow, adding new categories will only become a burden for employees. In addition, in the past, tea shops were relatively quiet in the morning. If coffee and baking were to become peak morning business, the store would need to open earlier, stock up in advance, and grill.
On May 25th, during a visit by Interface News to a vintage store in Xiasha Chengzhong Village, Futian, Shenzhen, staff stated that the store opened in March and April 2025 and added a coffee machine last year. Currently, it sells coffee beverages. But this coffee machine is stuck at the corner between the cashier and the control desk, and due to limited space, it is difficult for the staff to operate the machine directly.
The left picture shows the Guming coffee machine. Photo shoot: Interface News Lu Yibei
Therefore, the Guming store must be renovated accordingly.
Starting from 2025, Guming will launch a 6.0 store model nationwide, with a larger area, significantly increased dining areas, and visual design that is closer to the style of boutique coffee shops, in order to support the expansion of breakfast and coffee time slots and increase the proportion of dining in. The new store type information disclosed by the planning party of this partner conference event shows that the store flow and display area are adapting to new categories such as coffee and baking.
The ancient tea shop has been adjusted to adapt to new product categories. Photo source: Jade Wineless Culture official account
In 2026, tea beverage brands will collectively focus on coffee.
Chabaidao expects that by the end of 2026, its coffee business is expected to cover 2000 stores, and the proportion of coffee cup sales in dynamic stores will increase to around 15%; By the end of 2025, Shanghai Auntie has completed coffee equipment upgrades in over 6000 stores, and plans to increase the integration of tea and coffee in 2026 to enhance single store profitability; Even Meixue Ice City is piloting freshly brewed coffee and 7.9 yuan breakfast services.
The reason behind this is that the tea beverage industry has passed the stage where high growth can be achieved solely by opening stores quickly.
In the past few years, top brands have been rushing to open thousands of stores, but as store density continues to increase, blindly pursuing numbers can easily lead to an expansion of management radius, single store diversion, and fluctuations in franchisee revenue. Wang Yun'an also mentioned that expansion cannot exceed organizational capacity. If stores are opened too quickly and organizational capacity cannot keep up, problems will arise in the future. Therefore, expanding product categories and extending business hours have become common incremental choices for top brands.
Compared to others, Gu Ming took bigger steps. At present, in addition to breakfast and coffee, Guming also sells bottled beverages, fruit and vegetable juices, cassava stewed milk and other products in its stores, and plans to continue launching new products such as Paoluda and glutinous rice yogurt.
Wang Yun'an once mentioned that Guming does not pursue "leading fashion" in its products, but hopes to make products that have been verified by others more popular and stable; He also mentioned that the largest single product of Guming only accounts for 11% of the total sales. This means that what Guming really wants to do is not to bet on a popular product again, but to turn the store into a high-frequency consumption channel.
The advantage of Guming lies in its cold chain and regional encryption, which can support the entry of short-term products such as fresh milk, juice, and semi-finished baked goods into stores.
In 2025, Guming will achieve a revenue of approximately 12.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 46.9%; As of the end of the year, the number of stores reached 13554, with 82% of stores in second tier and below cities and 44% in rural areas. As of the end of 2025, Guming has 24 warehouses with a cold storage capacity of over 70000 cubic meters, and can provide cold chain delivery services to about 98% of stores every two days. By 2025, the cost of warehouse to store delivery will be less than 1% of the total GMV.
This system was originally designed to serve fresh fruit tea, but now it can be migrated to more new product categories.
Basic American and latte can only solve the problem of 'I have coffee too' What truly makes consumers remember Guming Coffee is whether it can create differentiated products with fresh fruit tea genes. Wang Yun'an previously mentioned that Guming needs to shift from "selling coffee" to "selling different types of coffee", with fruit and coffee being a key focus.
In the past, Guming relied on fresh fruit tea and the intensive opening of stores in lower tier markets to achieve scale; Now, the number of stores has exceeded 13000, and it must continue to grow from every store. Coffee and breakfast are the new answers given by Gu Ming. But whether this answer holds true ultimately depends on whether consumers are really willing to walk into Guming in the morning, and whether franchisees can make money from this cup of coffee and this bread.