On March 11, the topic of “Walsh Officially Announces Delisting” surged to the top of the hot search list. The topic has consistently ranked fourth on the hot search list, with increasing levels of attention.
According to Red Star News, after nearly ten years of being listed on the New Third Board, the “King of Western Fast Food” Walsh has officially announced its withdrawal from the capital market. Currently, the company faces challenges from new forces like Tasitin and a slowdown in its own business performance.
Public information shows that Fujian Walsh Food Co., Ltd. (Walsh Food) was established in August 2009 and was listed on the New Third Board in April 2016. Its main business is selling pre-packaged food and related auxiliary equipment to Walsh brand stores.
The founders of Walsh are the “Walsh Brothers.” In 2001, the brothers opened their first store and launched a special promotion with prices like 1 yuan for cola, 2 yuan for chicken legs, and 3 yuan for burgers to penetrate the lower-tier market with extreme cost-effectiveness, attracting a large number of consumers.
Subsequently, Walsh achieved rapid expansion through its original “store crowdfunding, employee partnership, direct management” model. In 2022, Walsh’s number of stores exceeded 20,000. However, in recent years, as the scale of expansion reached a bottleneck, the brand’s growth rate slowed down, and underlying problems gradually surfaced.
The “2023 Report on the Development of Western-style Fast Food Categories in China” shows that in the ranking of “Top 10 Western-style Fast Food Brands in China in 2022” based on per capita consumption, Walsh ranked third from the bottom with an average consumption of 18.9 yuan per person.
On February 12 this year, Walsh Food terminated its listing on the New Third Board.
It is worth mentioning that many consumers mistakenly thought that the delisting this time meant “Walsh is exiting the market” and worried that they “won’t be able to eat it anymore” and “won’t be able to find such cheap meals again.” However, delisting only means the company is withdrawing from the capital market and does not signify that its stores and operations are leaving the market, having no impact on the daily consumption of ordinary consumers.
According to the semi-annual report released by Walsh Food in 2025, although the company achieved a net profit attributable to the parent company of 121 million yuan in the first half of the year, representing a year-on-year growth of 35.32%, its operating income of 4.625 billion yuan showed historical negative growth.
Moreover, looking from a longer time perspective, the company’s business performance growth rate has continuously slowed down. From 2022 to 2024, the revenue growth rate of Walsh Food decreased from 24.36% to 13.31%.
Since being listed on the New Third Board in April 2016, Walsh has raised only 10 million yuan through market financing in nearly ten years, providing almost no substantial assistance to store expansion and business development.