Why are mooncakes not selling well this year? Where do the mooncakes that can't be sold out every year go?

Text/Wang Xinxi

This year's mooncake market has changed a bit, becoming a little deserted.

According to China Business Daily, on September 26, a supermarket worker in Fengtai District, Beijing, said that there were only a few days left before the Mid-Autumn Festival, and there were still very few people who came to buy mooncakes, which had long been selling at this time in previous years. The staff of another supermarket also said that the number of mooncake group purchases this year is much less than last year, and most consumers who come to buy mooncakes are out of just demand and choose mooncakes with more suitable prices.

In addition, some bakery owners said that this year's mooncake sales are significantly inferior to last year, and the number of group purchases by small and medium-sized business owners has decreased a lot, and the retail sales of stores are also much less.

Sohu Finance also reported this situation a few days ago, a Changsha pastry shop owner said that corporate customers laid off employees, resulting in a halving of group buying orders, and this year's Mid-Autumn Festival group purchase mooncake sales are only half of last year's. Another franchisee of a snack chain brand in Liaoning Province also said that group buying has decreased significantly this year.

In addition, according to data from the whale staff platform, in mid-to-early August this year (weeks 31-32 of 2023), the sales of mooncakes on the Jingdong platform totaled 91,000+, down about 43% year-on-year; Sales were 5.5 million+, down 55% year-over-year. This data also reflects that this year's mooncake market is sluggish, compared with the same period last year, the sales volume of the mooncake market has decreased significantly.

During the Mid-Autumn Festival, mooncake sales rarely get cold, but why aren't mooncakes selling well this year? What are the reasons behind this?

In the author's opinion, there are several factors behind this.

First of all, an important source of mooncake sales is corporate group buying. Many companies have poor profits and revenues, and compressing expenses has become a way for them to preserve cash flow.

Mooncakes are an integral part of traditional Chinese culture, and every year during the Mid-Autumn Festival, people will buy mooncakes to give to friends and relatives, but in the mooncake industry, a large part of the mooncake revenue in previous years may come from the distribution of enterprises and units or the delivery of customers.

In previous years, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, major enterprises often bought a large number of mooncakes and customized mooncakes, and would deliver mooncakes to each employee, and based on business contacts, some companies would also send mooncake gift boxes to cooperative customers in large quantities as commercial contacts.

Behind the decline in mooncake sales this year, it may reflect that many companies have poor revenue and profits, and the business is not good, and there are fewer customers, so some companies simply reduce the expenditure of sending mooncakes to employees, and the delivery to customers is also less. The above-mentioned Changsha pastry shop owner as well as Liaoning franchisees have said about this situation.

Mooncake manufacturers desperately roll packaging, play crossover, no roll taste and health

Today, a reality that must be admitted is that mooncakes on the market, less delicious, most mooncakes are really not delicious, now consumer tastes are getting worse and worse, but mooncakes are not delicious, the general high sugar, high fat, high calories, unhealthy, in general, everyone dare not eat more.

Although today, many mooncakes are under the slogan of sugar-free mooncakes, sugar-free mooncakes are still high in sugar and fat. A few days ago, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention suggested that "sugar-free mooncakes" actually refers to the use of xylitol, aspartame, etc. instead of sucrose, and the main raw material of sugar-free mooncake crust is flour.

In addition, the People's Daily reported that mooncakes are best eaten separately. According to the calculation of 150 grams of Wuren mooncake, an adult weighing about 50 kilograms will consume about 678 kilocalories of energy for each additional piece eaten, and must run 11.58 kilometers (about 80 minutes) to consume it.

Therefore, due to the high sugar and high calories of mooncakes, consumers also have difficulty in purchasing mooncakes, generally speaking, it is to look at the ingredient list and nutrition facts list, and try to choose mooncakes with lower energy, fat, sugar and sodium content.

But as mentioned earlier, there are very few mooncakes on the market with lower energy, fat, and sugar content. Mooncakes are mainly made of flour and starch, and even if no cane sugar is added to them, their sugar content is much higher than the national standard for sugar-free foods. Therefore, the so-called sugar-free mooncakes are actually commercial propaganda, not sugar-free in the true sense.

Times are different, consumers pay more attention to health, eating mooncakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival is our traditional custom, but how to make mooncakes healthier today, but retain the traditional flavor of mooncakes, in fact, merchants think less in this regard, change less, merchants are more in the roll packaging and play crossover. Mooncake packaging boxes are becoming more and more exquisite and fashionable, but in terms of taste and health, consumers still do not have much desire to eat.

In addition, according to an industry insider, this year's mooncake market has opened the national style and cross-border style, such as mooncakes in the tea market, wine cross-border mooncakes, Western-style mooncakes, fruit mooncakes, etc. are also more and more flower, more and more companies participate in it to make fun, but this cross-border essence is to go to the marketing gimmick, because the low cost of mooncakes, packaging and cross-border marketing brought by the high premium, can bring more considerable profits, but consumers do not buy it.

This has led to today's consumers viewing eating mooncakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival as a festive process, tasting them simply, and going through the ritual and process, but they don't like to eat, and most people won't eat more.

Therefore, if the company delivers less, there are fewer commercial gift-giving scenarios, and consumers may buy less themselves. As a result, the mooncake market is not as good as in previous years.

Where do the mooncakes that can't be sold out every year go?

If the mooncakes cannot be sold, then where the unsold mooncakes go, which is a problem that consumers are very concerned about.

We know that the shelf life of mooncakes is very long, which brings trouble to health-conscious consumers to buy mooncakes. Recently, some media reported that Mr. Huang purchased 800 packages of mooncakes in a mooncake factory in Xuzhou and sent them to customers all over the country, but the customer reported that the mooncakes were "expired" for 9 years.

The sales said that the mooncake factory was established in 2016, and there were no mooncakes produced in 2014, and the date was mistyped due to machine problems. The manufacturer said that it had recalled the product and would negotiate compensation with Mr. Huang. Local law enforcement will step in to investigate.

Many people think that the long shelf life of mooncakes is added with preservatives, so when buying mooncakes, they deliberately pick those with a short shelf life, thinking that such mooncakes have fewer preservatives.

However, at present, it has triggered a lot of discussion about the shelf life of mooncakes, in the end, is the shorter the shelf life, the safer?

Some experts said that this is not the case, experts believe that whether mooncakes need preservatives and how many preservatives are needed mainly depend on its ingredients, water content and ingredients. Particularly sweet mooncakes, such as bean paste mooncakes and five-kernel mooncakes, contain less moisture, more sugar, microorganisms are not easy to reproduce, more resistant to storage, not only preservatives are put less, the shelf life is longer.

The problem of the shelf life of mooncakes often makes consumers doubt the food safety of mooncakes. And every year in the Mid-Autumn Festival, some people ask: "Where to go if the mooncakes that cannot be sold out every year", in fact, there are often several ways to deal with the mooncakes that cannot be sold out:

First, the fracture is treated at an ultra-low price, the internal digestion that cannot be disposed of, and the employee is issued for benefits.

Second, the supermarket has a certain percentage of the right to return, and if it is really sold and sent out, it will be returned to the supplier.

Third, recycle and resell. After the Mid-Autumn Festival, many retailers go to mooncake factories to buy mooncakes. After these retailers have finished purchasing, they will send mooncakes to sell in rural markets.

Fourth, return to the factory, the manufacturer receives the mooncake after recycling the mooncake gift box for use next year, and the remaining mooncake is broken and sent to the feed factory to feed the pigs. In addition to retailers, feed mills also like to buy mooncakes at this time. After the feed mill breaks the mooncake, it can be processed as feed.

Fifth, some industry insiders revealed that most of the snack dealers selling to snack dealers such as chicken cakes and wife cakes or turning them into other cakes will cut off the crust and make the raw materials inside into snacks such as chicken cakes.

But whether there are other ways to deal with it is unknown, of course, consumers are worried about the mooncakes of previous years, which are repackaged and sold.

Therefore, in the current situation where consumers are unprecedentedly concerned about food safety issues, mooncake manufacturers may need to openly and transparently inform consumers of the handling methods, use healthier and high-quality mooncakes to gain consumers' trust, and use this to build brand reputation.

Epilogue:

Overall, poor mooncake sales do reflect some of the current difficulties facing the economy, but it also reflects some problems in the entire industry, consumers have changed, times have changed, and mooncakes need to change. Especially in the case that food safety issues have become an important livelihood issue of national concern, manufacturers need to try to ensure the quality of food products, and at the same time, the problem of mooncake taste and health may also be the direction that mooncake manufacturers need to transform and work towards.

This may be worth thinking about, when more and more people do not like to eat mooncakes, this is not only the festive atmosphere is weakened, the economic lower limit, but also means that mooncake manufacturers need to change.

Author: Wang Xinxi TMT Senior Reviewer This article is not reprinted without permission