Li Xin/Wen
In this era when any business is worth redone, with the blessing of new consumption, seasonal foods such as mooncakes have finally found a new growth point.
From traditional baking brands, to new tea brands, Internet manufacturers, and even some hospital canteens, they have begun to write articles around a piece of mooncake. For enterprises and brands, mooncakes are not only high-quality products that drive profits in the short term, but also a good brand promotion carrier.
In the past Mid-Autumn Festival, the mooncake has caused a lot of controversy. Before there was a knowledge of the mooncake with "maltitol" to induce diarrhea, after the mooncake gift box over-packaging to cause spit, and the "Maxim's" fake problem is also "old tune replay".
The most reunion night is the Mid-Autumn Festival, and it is understandable that the brand wants to take advantage of the east wind of the festival, but don't forget that the original intention of consumers is to eat a really good moon cake after appreciating the moon.
Under the goal of "differentiation", excessive packaging leads to complaints
From old brands to new brands, racking your brains to find "differentiation" is a true portrayal of the current mooncake market.
The veteran mooncake brand Maxim's, in addition to its signature flowing heart milk yellow and traditional lotus flavor, has also launched ice skin mooncakes, Musang King durian mooncakes and other more popular flavors among young people; the customer service of its store told Caijing That Maxim's also made a joint name with Minions this year, but the product has been sold out of the shelves.
Caijing Industry and Economics visited Hollylai stores and found that Hollylai was quite "bothered" in the mooncake gift box. The theme of the gift box includes "Moon Landing Label", "Smiling Moon", "Cloud Moon", "Space Archive", "Bard Moon Chapter", etc., and the filling has a mysterious taste, jasmine cheese flavor, etc., which is completely different from the traditional moon cake, and the overall is full of fun.
Image source: Caijing.com Sankei photographed in Hollywood store
The performance of new tea brands is also extremely eye-catching. Heytea co-branded Seesaw launched the "Steal a Moon for You" gift box, set the concept of "Stealing the Moon from Each Other", and innovated the filling of Coffee Zhizhi Flowing Heart Mochi and Green Yan Coffee Flowing Heart Mochi.
Some new Chinese dim sum brands, such as Master Bao and Luxihe, have seized on their own "freshly baked and sold" characteristics, focusing on freshly baked mooncakes.
Zhang Yi, CEO and chief analyst of Ai Media Consulting Group, said on the analysis of the financial network industry and economics that consumer brands follow the trend to make mooncakes, on the one hand, because the mooncakes themselves have high profits, and secondly, the sales period of the mooncakes will be one to two months earlier than the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the sales period is also very long, which determines that the mooncakes can become a pulling tool for short-term strong profits.
In addition to the brand, the Mid-Autumn Festival mooncake gift box has also become a stage for the performance of various Internet manufacturers. An employee of Factory B told Caijing that the company's mooncake benefits are hand-held, but each business line will also customize it. She also said that this year, the company and Wufangzhai also jointly signed a mooncake gift box.
Another employee of Factory A told Caijing that the company launched three different mooncakes this year according to different business lines, and employees can choose one of them.
From the brand to the company, all the way down, the outer packaging design, the inner filling taste innovation, and the theme gift box are several important channels for creating differentiation around the mooncake.
Zhang Yi said to the analysis of the financial network industry and economics that the mooncake can be eaten by itself or given as a gift. Enterprises and brands make mooncake gift boxes to see the positive effect of mooncake circulation on the dissemination and publicity of brands.
However, the excessive pursuit of differentiation has also attracted some complaints, the first of which is packaging. Criticisms such as "buying packaging and sending mooncakes", "such a big box, there are a few inside", "wasting resources", "packaging is more expensive than mooncakes", etc., are also the most common negative comments on social media about mooncake gift boxes. On September 19, the Shanghai Municipal Supervision Bureau carried out excessive packaging of mooncake gift boxes, on-site law enforcement inspections and supervision spot checks. Among them, the mooncake gift boxes of Venchi, Godiva, Gui Manlong and Cai Lan are all suspected of overpackaging.
Low sugar and low fat are controversial, and fakes are frequently mixed
In addition to the innovation in appearance, with the rise of the healthy consumption trend, the concept of "low sugar" is also a major mainstream.
However, the combination of mooncakes + low sugar made Zhihu turn over the car once. On September 9, the topic of "knowing that the mooncake ate diarrhea" was on the hot search, and netizens ridiculed "knowing that thank you for inviting laxatives". On the same day, Zhihu apologized and admitted that the procurement experience was insufficient and did not consider it thoroughly. It also said that it previously entrusted mature enterprises with good reputation in the industry to produce and chose the low-sugar formula provided by the manufacturer, but ignored the maltitol used to replace sucrose, which may cause some people to become intolerant and cause physical discomfort.
In fact, maltitol is an early sugar alcohol applied to low-calorie sweeteners, and the sweetness is close to that of sucrose. The National Standard for Food Safety And the Standard for the Use of Food Additives (GB2760-2014) does not stipulate the maximum amount of maltitol used in bread, pastries, biscuits, baked food fillings and their surface hanging pastes. This means that merchants can "use the right amount according to production needs".
Image source: National Standard for Food Safety Food Additive Use Standard (GB2760-2014)
But in fact, it is not sugar itself, but a kind of sugar substitute, which is not easily absorbed by the human body, the calories generated are low, and excessive intake may produce diarrhea and other problems. Fan Zhihong, a director of the Chinese Nutrition Society and a doctor of food science, once wrote on Weibo: "Maltitol does not raise blood sugar, but eating too much may lead to diarrhea." So only eat in small amounts. ”
Caijing Network Sankei observation found that in the official flagship store of Maxim's heart, a low-sugar mooncake gift box sold 10,000+ per month.
Image source: Screenshot of Maxim's official flagship store
The description of the product says "replace sugar with sugar alcohols". The ingredient list displayed by the customer service to the financial network Sankei contains maltitol and isomaltolitol.
Image source: Provided by Maxim's official flagship store customer service
However, there are other public information showing that sugar alcohol substitutes are generally extracted from grains and plants, and react with hydrogen under the action of catalysts, which is relatively "natural", although more than the dose is easy to cause diarrhea, but the range is also very large, adults can not exceed 50 grams per day. After browsing the Taobao reviews of "Maxim's" low-sugar mooncake related products, caijing network sankei has not found any consumers to report diarrhea after eating.
Exquisite leather bags boost the high price, and with the blessing of new consumption, there are many mooncake gift boxes on the market that cost up to 1,000 yuan. But under the high price, there are many fakes.
On September 18, the news that "500 yuan a box of LV mooncakes is a fake" was on Weibo's hot search. A briefcase-sized suitcase, LV logo leather, with six small cartons of mooncakes inside, but such a beautiful appearance is wrapped in fakes. Because, this year' LV mooncakes are packed in cartons.
In addition, Maxim's mooncakes are also the hardest hit areas for fakes. On September 8, the Shanghai Minhang Public Security Bureau successfully destroyed two criminal dens that produced and sold counterfeit Maxim's mooncakes, and seized more than 2,200 boxes of mooncakes involved in the case. On the Little Red Book, many users also shared their experience of buying fake Maxim's mooncakes. The communication channels of fake goods include: circle of friends group purchase, Taobao purchasing, etc., mainly concentrated in unofficial channels.
epilogue
Looking at this Mid-Autumn Festival mooncake market, the new consumption logic has penetrated a small mooncake. But no matter how exquisite the skin bag is, consumers will eventually eat the mooncake. The mooncakes that can make Shanghai citizens queue up to buy on typhoon days must not rely on packaging and appearance to win; the queue takes four hours, and the cloud leg mooncakes of Guizhou Provincial People's Hospital with sales of hundreds of millions of dollars are undoubtedly loved by consumers.
Taking off the complicated packaging, erasing the inflated price, and returning to a piece of mooncake itself may be the initial expectation of consumers to eat mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival.