Mixue was founded in June 1997 by entrepreneur Zhang Hongchao as a modest shaved-ice street stall in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, China. Through decades of relentless operational refinement, the introduction of affordable soft-serve ice cream, and the pioneering of a vertically integrated supply chain franchise model, the business scaled from a local storefront into a domestic phenomenon before embarking on rapid international expansion across Asia and beyond.