Why POP MART is putting its IP on the menu

For POP MART, the next stage of growth may not be about selling more toys. It is about giving consumers more ways to interact with its characters.

That thinking sits behind POP BAKERY, the art toy brand's move into F&B, which recently made its Southeast Asian debut in Singapore. While the launch adds desserts and drinks to POP MART's growing experiential retail footprint, the strategy behind it is broader: turning its intellectual properties into an ecosystem that stretches beyond collectibles.

In an interview with MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, Zhang Xiaoyang, head of POP BAKERY, said that food gives POP MART another way to bring its characters into consumers' everyday lives.

“Desserts are a universal medium for delivering joy and emotional connection. They enable our IPs to become part of consumers' everyday lives, while complementing the immersive experiences created through POP MART's theme parks and offline destinations,” Zhang said.

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In that sense, POP BAKERY is less about POP MART becoming a food brand and more about finding another medium through which its IP can live.

The concept was originally incubated within POP LAND, POP MART's theme park in Beijing, where the company experimented with playful desserts, handcrafted beverages and immersive experiences around its characters.

But POP MART did not move straight from theme park concept to permanent bakery. Over the past two years, the company has been testing and refining the proposition, including launching more than 30 mobile dessert kiosks across China to observe consumer reactions, gather feedback and improve its products.

The first permanent POP BAKERY opened in Aranya, China, with the Singapore outlet becoming only the second permanent location globally and the first in Southeast Asia.

For POP MART, the process reflects a broader approach to diversification. Rather than simply adding new categories, it is looking for ways to create additional touchpoints between consumers and its IP.

“POP BAKERY and our broader Innovative Business are part of this long-term strategy. By extending our IP reach into consumer goods, immersive experiences, and digital entertainment, we are creating new touchpoints for consumers and deepening their emotional connections with our IPs and characters,” Zhang said.

That strategy is already visible across POP MART's business. In China, the company has expanded into home décor, jewellery through POPOP, home appliances through POP MART HOME and theme park experiences through POP LAND.

It is also moving further into entertainment, with POP MART and Sony Pictures co-developing a LABUBU feature film, which remains in early development and will combine live action and CGI.

The common thread is the IP itself. As Zhang puts it: 

Desserts can also become another medium for IP storytelling and long-term character development.

Making IP part of everyday life

Food offers POP MART something its core collectibles cannot necessarily provide: a more frequent and social interaction with an IP.

A collectible can sit on a shelf, but a dessert can be eaten, shared, photographed and posted. That gives the character another role in consumers' everyday lives, while creating opportunities for social engagement and user-generated content.

This is particularly relevant to POP MART's strategy of building deeper fandom rather than relying solely on individual product purchases.

The company sees its physical locations as part of that relationship-building exercise too.

“Customer in-store experience is at the core of our retail philosophy. We see each brick-and-mortar location as a tangible extension of our brand identity,” Zhang said.

That means POP MART does not use a one-size-fits-all approach across its stores. The company says its locations are designed with distinct aesthetics, while spaces are regularly refreshed to keep them visually engaging.

The Singapore POP BAKERY takes that approach a step further, incorporating subtle Peranakan cultural elements into POP MART's playful, fantasy-led aesthetic.

The experience is also designed to evolve. Zhang said the RWS outlet will be refreshed approximately every six to 12 months, with future iterations expected to draw inspiration from local culture and seasonal themes.

That creates an interesting model for an IP brand: the characters remain familiar, but the environment and experience around them can keep changing.

Localisation also extends to the menu. Rather than replicating the China concept, POP MART developed Singapore-exclusive desserts inspired by local and Southeast Asian flavours. These include the Twinkle Twinkle tangy coconut mousse, Twinkle Twinkle sweet coconut mousse, Go around with Twinkle Twinkle sea salt & coconut flavoured popsicle and PUCKY xiao long bao dessert.

“We wanted the RWS POP BAKERY to feel familiar and relevant to local consumers,” Zhang said.

“We have combined POP MART's classic IP gourmet system with flavours inspired by Singapore and SEA. The result is a menu that stays true to the POP BAKERY experience while offering something unique for local consumers and international visitors.”

The localisation was informed by consumer research conducted ahead of launch, while POP MART also built a dedicated in-house team to ensure the food itself could stand alongside the strength of its IP. Zhang added:

People may first be drawn to our products because of how they look, but we want them to be equally impressed by how they taste. At the end of the day, we are in the food business.

For a brand built on visual appeal, that distinction is important. The characters may be what gets consumers through the door, but POP MART is betting the experience needs to give them a reason to return.

That is where customer feedback comes in. POP MART plans to measure POP BAKERY through a combination of foot traffic, repeat visits and social engagement, but Zhang said consumer sentiment will be equally important.

The company has already made changes based on customer behaviour. After learning that consumers preferred larger cookie packs for sharing with friends and colleagues, for example, it adjusted product formats such as its LABUBU butter cookies.

The approach suggests POP BAKERY is being treated as an evolving proposition rather than a fixed retail concept.

Singapore itself is also playing a strategic role in that experiment. The country was POP MART's first Southeast Asian market, which it entered in 2021, and the brand is marking its sixth anniversary in Singapore this year. Its position as an international travel destination also gives POP MART access to both local fans and visitors from across the region and beyond.

“Singapore was a natural choice for our first POP BAKERY in Southeast Asia,” Zhang said, pointing to the country's role as an Asia-Pacific hub and major travel destination.

The choice of Resorts World Sentosa further reinforces that strategy. The outlet sits within WEAVE, a new lifestyle and retail destination at the heart of RWS, placing the concept within a tourism and entertainment environment rather than a conventional shopping mall. For POP MART, that helps blur the line between retail and destination experience.

And that may be the bigger opportunity behind POP BAKERY. As brands increasingly look for ways to turn fandom into longer-term relationships, POP MART is building more occasions around the same IP rather than relying on one product category.

The company is already looking beyond collectibles and blind boxes, with Zhang saying it is “optimistic about POP BAKERY's growth” as part of a broader business ecosystem spanning products, experiences and entertainment.

The ambition is ultimately to turn its characters from things consumers collect into characters they can encounter across different parts of their lives.

For POP MART, the blind box may have been the starting point. The bigger bet is what happens when the IP escapes the box altogether.

Photo credits to POP Bakery, Instagram.

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