Youyou
Youyou is a Chongqing food company and snack brand known for pickled chicken feet and other packaged, prepared foods.
Last updated October 12, 2026
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Overview
Youyou (有友) is the consumer-facing brand of Youyou Food Co., Ltd. (有友食品股份有限公司), a Chinese food company based in Chongqing. The company’s history is closely associated with its founder, Lu Youzhong, and with Chongqing’s food culture. The company website dates Youyou Food’s establishment to 1997; its history page also traces an earlier business lineage to a hotel founded by Lu in 1987 and a company established in 1988. Those dates describe different stages in the company’s story rather than a single unambiguous founding date. The brand is best known for pickled chicken feet, including its chicken-feet series. Its wider assortment, as presented on the official website, includes products in the skin-crystal series, aquatic-products series, braised-products series, vegetarian series, and fried-peanut series. The company describes these products as convenient foods for occasions such as meals, travel, gatherings, and work breaks. Youyou’s history page recounts the development of pickled chicken feet from a popular restaurant dish into a packaged product, and describes the move from small-scale production toward industrialized manufacturing. The company’s official history places production expansion in Chongqing and Sichuan. Its website chronology identifies the Yubei production base as beginning operation in 2007 and the Bishan base in 2017; the history page dates the Sichuan base to 2010, while the homepage chronology gives 2012. Youyou first listed on China’s New Third Board in 2014, according to the company’s history, and later listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange main board on May 8, 2019, under ticker 603697. Youyou presents itself as a food manufacturer focused on product quality, food safety, and standardized production. In a 2026 statement, the company said it has controls spanning raw-material procurement, processing, final inspection, warehousing, and logistics, with traceability, and cited SC food-production licensing, HACCP, and ISO 22000 management systems. In 2025, it announced packaging-label changes in preparation for new Chinese food-labeling requirements, noting that existing packaging could continue to be used during the transition period. The company’s stated ambition is to build a long-lived business and a world-class brand, while its stated mission emphasizes making good products.
History
Youyou’s official history links the company’s development to Chongqing’s culinary culture and to founder Lu Youzhong. The company’s history page says Lu founded Youyou Hotel in 1987. While running the restaurant business, he observed that dishes made with pickled-pepper flavors were popular. The page dates the establishment of Youyou Company to 1988, and says Youyou Food was established in 1997, the year Chongqing became a municipality. The homepage likewise identifies 1997 as the founding year of Chongqing Youyou Food Development Co., Ltd. The differing early dates are presented here as stages in the company’s own account of its origins. A key part of Youyou’s product history is the development of pickled chicken feet. The company recounts that these products grew out of popular restaurant dishes and were subsequently promoted as packaged foods. It describes the transition from small-scale production to industrialized manufacturing as part of its growth. The official website lists the Yubei production base as entering operation in 2007. Its history page gives 2010 for the Sichuan production base, while its homepage chronology gives 2012; the available company material therefore contains a discrepancy on that date. The Bishan production base began operation in 2017 according to the company’s chronology. Youyou’s capital-market history includes a 2014 listing on China’s New Third Board, followed by its Shanghai Stock Exchange main-board listing on May 8, 2019. The company’s history page identifies its Shanghai listing code as 603697. In describing its direction, the company says it seeks to build a world brand and a century-long enterprise, and identifies making first-class products as a mission. More recent official communications reflect the company’s focus on operating standards and packaging compliance. In June 2025, Youyou announced that it would revise product packaging labels in response to national food-labeling rules scheduled to take effect in 2027, while noting that a transition period allowed old packaging to continue to be used. In March 2026, the company published a food-safety statement after reporting on problems in parts of the chicken-feet sector. It said it opposed illegal practices and described controls covering procurement, processing, inspection, storage, and logistics, as well as traceability and production-management systems. These statements document the company’s public position; they are not an independent audit of its practices.
- 2026
Publishes food-safety and compliant-operations statement
- 2025
Announces product packaging-label adjustments
- 2019
Lists on the Shanghai Stock Exchange main board
- 2017
Bishan production base begins operation
- 2014
Youyou Food lists on the New Third Board
- 2012
Sichuan production base date shown on homepage
- 2010
Sichuan production base begins operation (history-page date)
- 2007
Yubei production base begins operation
- 1997
Youyou Food established
- 1988
Youyou Company established
Products and positioning
A Chinese packaged-food company and snack brand rooted in Chongqing flavors, with pickled chicken feet as its signature offering and an emphasis on product quality and food safety.
Chicken-feet series
A central Youyou product range; the company’s history recounts the promotion of pickled chicken feet.
Skin-crystal series
A product series listed on the official homepage.
Aquatic-products series
A product series listed on the official homepage.
Braised-products series
A product series listed on the official homepage.
Vegetarian series
A product series listed on the official homepage.
Fried-peanut series
A product series listed on the official homepage.
Controversies
Brand decisions
- Packaging-label adjustmentsOther
- Public food-safety statementOther
Sources6 sources
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