Recent weighing disputes in the bulk snack retail sector are prompting two leading companies to address a gap in store management oversight. On September 7, BUSYMING and Haoxianglai each issued responses regarding in-store weighing issues, stating they have proactively contacted market regulators and cooperated with inspections, while also announcing upgrades to their weighing management systems. Both companies require all nationwide stores to uniformly equip standard calibration weights, perform scale checks before opening each day, and only begin operations after accuracy is confirmed. Additionally, a national scale monitoring system has been launched, transmitting every weighing transaction for bulk items back to headquarters in real time, ensuring records are traceable and tamper-proof.

Previously, consumers faced significant difficulty providing evidence of weighing irregularities once they left the store. Stores could also attribute discrepancies to system malfunctions or employee errors, making it challenging to assign clear responsibility. This latest rectification effort aims to simultaneously strengthen both pre-emptive and in-process oversight. Combined with inspection patrols and accountability measures, headquarters are seeking to close the management loophole that previously relied on store self-discipline and only pursued issues after problems emerged.

Meanwhile, both companies have introduced an identical compensation commitment: if a store is found to have weighing or pricing errors after verification, customers will receive compensation equal to ten times the price difference of the mis-weighed items. A special fund has been established to guarantee the implementation of this policy.

The current reform stems from a series of weighing controversies that have surfaced recently. A consumer in Hebei reported that when purchasing four pieces of beef jerky at a Zhaoyiming Snacks outlet, the initial checkout amount was 64.58 yuan, but after re-weighing, the corresponding amount was only 17.29 yuan. Similarly, Haoxianglai was exposed to an incident where a consumer's first checkout totaled 111 yuan, which dropped to 64.8 yuan upon re-weighing. Following these incidents, multiple local market regulatory authorities launched targeted measurement inspections of bulk snack retail stores. The Baotou market supervision department included checks for whether electronic pricing scales had been tampered with and whether they had undergone periodic verification. In Funing, Jiangsu, inspections uncovered issues such as improper scale management and inadequate implementation of measurement coding requirements at certain individual stores.

From the perspective of headquarters at leading bulk snack brands, there is, in theory, a lack of direct economic incentive for systematically overcharging consumers through weighing discrepancies. This is because the core business model of both companies relies primarily on franchising and supply chain distribution. Headquarters mainly earn revenue from the product price differences generated by supplying goods to franchisees, rather than participating in profit sharing from terminal store sales. The additional revenue from weighing irregularities directly benefits the individual franchised stores. Conversely, when a single store commits a weighing violation, headquarters bears the brunt of brand reputation damage, regulatory scrutiny, and the ripple effects across the entire franchise network.

The issue therefore largely stems from the management span between headquarters and terminal stores. Currently, both BUSYMING and Haoxianglai remain in a phase of rapid expansion. As of the end of June 2026, BUSYMING reached 26,400 stores, with a net increase of 4,457 stores in the first half of the year. Haoxianglai's parent company, Wanchen Group, operates approximately 23,800 bulk snack retail stores, adding a net 5,488 stores in the first half. The growing scale of store networks inevitably raises the difficulty of management. For tens of thousands of franchised stores, increasing the cost of violations is important, but the more fundamental issue lies in raising the probability of detecting misconduct. Whether this mechanism proves effective ultimately depends on whether anomalies can be identified and addressed promptly, and whether inspection and penalty systems maintain long-term consistency rather than being short-lived, campaign-style crackdowns.