Produced by Radar Finance Text | Ding Yu Editor | Meng Shuai
Less than a year after taking office, Zong Fuli’s “confidant” born in the 1990s, Xu Simin, also resigned from Wahaha?
In November last year, Xu Simin had just succeeded Zong Fuli as the chairman of Wahaha. Previously, he started as Hongsheng’s legal specialist. Under Zong Fuli’s promotion, he worked his way up to Hongsheng’s legal department director, and later served as Wahaha Group Supervisor and Wahaha Group General Manager.
Some media pointed out that Xu Simin’s resignation may be due to concerns about the joint responsibilities of Hongsheng and Wahaha after the implementation of the “Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Entrusted Food Production” and his unwillingness to take greater risks in the position of legal representative.
However, Jiemian News learned from a person familiar with Wahaha that Xu Simin has not officially resigned, and there has been no internal announcement. However, he has not appeared in court to participate in Wahaha-related lawsuits on behalf of Wahaha recently.
In fact, as the brand owner, manufacturer and seller of Wahaha, Wahaha Group and Hongsheng Group are already “entangled”.
Affected by various factors such as frequent internal personnel adjustments, internal strife within the clan, and intensified external market competition, both Wahaha and Hongsheng are currently facing considerable operating pressure in the market.
The chairman of Wahaha was exposed to have resigned, and he had been re-employed by Zong Fuli before.
According to multiple media reports, Xu Simin, the legal representative, chairman and general manager of Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co., Ltd., has resigned recently.
The source of this news came from a Wahaha “employee” who was in court with Wahaha. He revealed that he received a summons from the court on the morning of the 22nd, but on the afternoon of the same day, the court informed the employee of the specific time of the court session and other notices. The reason given by the court was “The court called Xu Simin to confirm the hearing, but he told the people in the court that he resigned.”
However, an insider revealed to The Paper that Xu Simin has not yet completely left the company. The specific candidate to succeed Xu Simin has been discussed internally at Wahaha but has not yet been finalized.
Another person familiar with the matter told Jiemian News that Xu Simin is still at work and has not officially resigned, and there has been no announcement within the group.
According to Tianyancha, as of press time, the industrial and commercial information of Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co., Ltd. has not changed, and Xu Simin is still the chairman, general manager, and legal representative of Wahaha Group.
Regarding this chairman who has been in office for less than a year, a Wahaha employee directly pointed out, “He is very young and born in the 1990s. Everyone knows that Xu Simin is actually from the Zong Fuli faction.”
In terms of equity, although Zong Fuli and her confidant Xu Simin have resigned (or are rumored to have resigned) as the “top leaders” of Wahaha Group, Zong Fuli still directly holds 29.4% of Wahaha’s shares.
Public information shows that Xu Simin was born in Jieyang, Guangdong in 1994. He graduated from Zhejiang University with a law major. In 2015, he founded the Chinese and Western fast food brand “Yuan Niu Dao” and joined the legal department of Hongsheng Group after encountering setbacks in his business.
Hongsheng Group has long been regarded as the “Wahaha OEM” by the outside world. It is controlled by Zong Fuli, the daughter of Wahaha founder Zong Qinghou, and the two companies have a close relationship.
After Xu Simin joined Hongsheng, she started as a legal specialist and handled cases such as the trademark dispute between Wahaha and Danone. She also took the lead in sorting out more than 300 trademark usage records and clarified the boundaries of trademark rights and responsibilities between Hongsheng and Wahaha in OEM production.
Subsequently, with his outstanding work performance, Xu Simin was promoted to the position of director of the legal department, thereby joining the core team of Hongsheng, and was deeply appreciated by Zong Fuli.
After Zong Fuli took over Wahaha in August 2024, Xu Simin was promoted to the core of Wahaha’s power, serving as a supervisor of Wahaha Group, and serving as legal representative, general manager and other positions in many affiliated companies.
In September 2025, it was revealed that Zong Fuli resigned from Wahaha’s legal representative, director and chairman of the board and other related positions. In November of the same year, Xu Simin officially took over as the chairman and legal representative of Wahaha.
Is the resignation related to the implementation of new regulations? Hongsheng continued to adjust during the year
According to Caijing, a Wahaha employee with knowledge of the situation said that one of the important reasons why Xu Simin chose to resign was related to a new food production regulation that will be implemented at the end of this year.
This new regulation is the “Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Food Entrusted Production” promulgated by the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR Order No. 113), which will be officially implemented on December 1, 2026. It aims to further consolidate the responsibilities of both entrusting parties, standardize food entrusted production behavior, and focus on preventing food safety risks.
Under this new regulation, if there is a problem with the foundry, the OEM brand will also be held responsible. Wahaha and Hongsheng have a relationship of “continuous cutting and chaos”. The former is the owner of the “Wahaha” trademark, and the latter is responsible for the production and sales of Wahaha products.
The employee believed that Xu Simin may have resigned because he was worried about the joint liability of Hongsheng and Wahaha after the implementation of the new regulations and was unwilling to take greater risks as the legal representative.
According to public reports, as early as 2024, Wahaha commissioned Jinmailang for OEM production. However, during the cooperation period, Wahaha’s self-inspection found that “individual batches of pure water products failed to pass factory sampling inspections”, so the cooperation was terminated in April 2025.
At the same time, Wahaha said that as its own production capacity recovers, it will “fully realize independent production” and will not look for OEMs in the future.
In 2025, after the transfer of the “Wahaha” trademark failed, Zong Fuli resigned from relevant positions in Wahaha Group and began to focus on the operations of Hongsheng Group.
However, since 2026, the situation of Hongsheng Group is not optimistic. According to internal documents provided by people close to Hongsheng Group, as of May 9, Hongsheng had reported a total of 2.3 billion nationwide, completing 66% of the task, a negative growth of 24% over the same period, and shipped 520 million, only 15% of the task completed, a negative growth of 83% over the same period, and the shipment progress was seriously slowed down.
The document also mentioned that from March to April, dealers across the country had prominent problems in receiving goods and fulfilling contracts, especially 242 customers with delayed orders accounting for more than 40%.
At the same time, there was also turmoil within the Hongsheng Group. After Zong Fuli replaced the original person in charge of administration, sales, legal affairs, production and other sectors of Hongsheng Group in May this year, she demoted Kou Jing, the director of the Human Resources Department, in August.
In addition, Jiemian News reported in May that Hongsheng Group is also outsourcing non-production operations. Some insiders have said that since the beginning of this year, the outsourcing work of Hongsheng Group’s four major business sectors including energy, property, warehousing, and laboratories needs to be fully completed before June 30, and 30% of the employees may eventually be laid off.
Wahaha continues to be under pressure, and internal strife within the family continues
While Hongsheng Group’s operations are under pressure, Wahaha’s life is not “easy” either.
According to the Daily Economic News, in May this year, a large dealer with a sales volume of 10 million yuan reported that since the beginning of this year, the sales of its Wahaha products have dropped by 20% year-on-year, indicating that there is a shortage of goods.
“Finance” also mentioned in the latest report that many dealers revealed that Wahaha’s sales in 2026 are not optimistic. A dealer in Xinjiang said that Wahaha’s current sales have dropped by 20% compared with last year.
From the perspective of the outside world, in addition to factors such as intensified external competition, internal problems among Wahaha, Hongsheng and Zongjia cannot be underestimated.
When Zong Fuli was in power, she launched drastic internal reforms at Wahaha. One of the key actions was to transfer a large number of core resources such as personnel and sales from Wahaha Group to Hongsheng Group, which she personally controlled.
However, after the labor contract is changed, the “share dividend” treatment originally enjoyed by Wahaha’s old employees in Wahaha Group will be cancelled.
Zong Fuli’s aforementioned move immediately triggered a strong backlash. Dozens of employees took Zong Fuli and Wahaha to court, requesting that the relevant equity repurchase be confirmed to be invalid.
The Shanghai Securities News mentioned in a report at the end of November last year that according to statistics from the case acceptance information of the Hangzhou Xihu District People’s Court, since 2025, 32 resigned employees have filed lawsuits against Wahaha due to “equity repurchase price disputes”, with the total amount involved reaching 120 million yuan.
At the same time, Zong Fuli is still accelerating Hongsheng’s “de-Wahaha” strategy. Since 2025, dozens of Hongsheng companies have successively deleted “Wahaha” from their names.
Earlier, in the second half of 2024, dealers in more than ten regional markets such as Tibet and Qinghai have been fully integrated into Hongsheng’s sales network to build a channel foundation for its new independent brand “Waxiaozong”.
In addition, there are many factions within the Zong family. In addition to Zong Fuli, Zong Qinghou’s younger brother Zong Zehou also founded brands such as “Waxiaozhi” and “Zongshifu”.
The founding core team of the “Zongshifu” brand originated from Wahaha, and gathered Wahaha’s original R&D, marketing, marketing and other personnel.
Wahaha veteran Du Jianying participates in the actual operation of the Wahaha system through the “Rongtai Series” and “Sanjie Series” companies.
It is reported that Du Jianying and Zong Qinghou have three children. In recent years, the former has been in court with Zong Fuli for a long time due to the ownership of offshore trusts, which has brought considerable public pressure to both Wahaha and Zong Fuli.
On the eve of Zong Fuli’s resignation, Wahaha was already suffering from family infighting. In the first half of 2025, Wahaha’s sales fell rapidly. Sales of AD calcium milk in East China fell by 37%, and the market share of pure water fell from 18% to 12%.
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