People shop for mooncakes
in Beijing on the eve of the Mid-Autumn Festival. [China
Daily]
With Mid-Autumn Day coming tomorrow, saleswoman Wang Xiurong is finding her
business less buoyant than expected.
Her counter in Beijing's Sogo department store has an array of simple,
prettily packaged mooncakes costing 88 to 689 yuan (US$11-87) per box.
"The best seller was a box of Cantonese flavoured mooncakes priced at 189
yuan (US$23.9)," Wang said, adding that the same product with a 10-yuan
(US$1.25) bottle of wine tucked into the box sold for more than 250 yuan
(US$31.6) last year.
Glamorous mooncake packs containing "special accessories" such as wines or
fine watches were very popular last year, but this glitzy approach has sent
mooncake prices through the roof.
At festival time last year, newspapers reported two extreme cases - a box of
mooncakes containing a gold Buddha figurine worth 180,000 yuan (US$22,500) and
another box that included the key to a new apartment worth 310,000 yuan
(US$38,750).
"People buy them as gifts for friends or relatives, or even as bribes for
officials," Wang said. "The 'special mooncake accessories' make the gifts
'heavier' and the recipients happier."
The "Compulsory State Standards for the Production of Mooncakes," jointly
released by the General Administration of Quality Inspection, Supervision and
Quarantine and the Standardization Administration of China, took effect this
June.
According to the standards, mooncake packaging must represent no more than 25
per cent of the total cost of the mooncake product, and the average space
between mooncakes in a box should not exceed 2.5 centimetres.
Some local mooncake standards ban accessories in mooncake boxes to prevent
extravagance and corruption.
Wang, the saleswoman, said enforcement of the standards has pushed mooncake
prices down this year, but some people still like to buy mooncakes with
accessories.
"Some shoppers keep asking if there is wine in the mooncake box and leave
disappointed when I tell them that the government prohibits 'accessories' in
boxes," Wang said.
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