China taste for cakes puts Hong Kong over the moon
Mon 20 September, 2004 09:42

By Nao Nakanishi

http://wwwi.reuters.com/images/2004-09-20T084441Z_01_NOA031140_RTRUKOP_2_PICTURE0.jpg

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Starbucks sells them in coffee flavours. Haagen-Dazs has launched an ice cream version.

Mooncakes aren't just salted duck egg yolk any more. In Hong Kong, they've become big business.

The Chinese swear by these traditional, round pastries, shared among family and friends and reverently given away at the height of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

This year, mainlanders are turning to Hong Kong for their annual fix after a series of food scares back home, most notably fake milk powder scams that killed 13 babies and shocked the world's most populous nation.

The city's bakeries are scrambling to hire staff to churn out hundreds of millions of the palm-sized cakes -- each of which has more calories than a McDonald's Big Mac -- as their delivery hotlines ring off-the-hook.

"A lot of people come from the mainland to buy mooncakes. Now they account for 30 to 40 percent of our business," said Cheung Tze-wing, a chef at the auspiciously named Eight Spirits Bakery in bustling Kowloon district.

"More people can afford mooncakes ... Our ingredients are good and genuine," said Cheung, wiping the sweat from his brow and patting flour from his apron.

In a tiny kitchen next to his stall, some 30 workers whip up 1,600 mooncakes a day in the run-up to the festival in late September. Those cakes are hand-made the old way, in traditional flavours.

Bakery owners say despite the advent of new-fangled versions, nothing beats the classics, the ones oozing with gummy lotus seed paste and salted duck egg yolk to symbolise the full moon. Others boast ham and assorted nuts, red or green bean paste.

SUBVERSIVE SWEETS

The mooncake celebrates the overthrow of the Mongols at the end of the Yuan Dynasty in the 14th century. According to legend, secret notes baked into the sweets helped spark an uprising.

Today, people give away the cakes in elaborately designed boxes to show respect and gratitude to friends and family.

Along with colourful lantern processions, they are indispensable to the family gathered to admire the radiant autumn moon on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month.

And as the Hong Kong economy begins to emerge from years of malaise, the booming mooncake industry is a welcome boost.

The city buys some 5 million mooncakes a year, worth more than $20 million. Chinese consumption is up to 150 times that.

Prices for vegetable oil and sugar usually climb in China in August or September as bakeries spring into action.

An average gift box costs about HK$150 (11 pounds) in Hong Kong. But taxes and transport mean prices head north towards 200 yuan (13 pounds) or more on the mainland -- compared with an average per capita annual income there of about $1,000 (560 pounds).

But the high prices seem to have done little to curb China's appetite for their annual treats.

The China Association of Bakery and Confectionery Industry estimated that the country's mooncake consumption was growing by close to 10 percent.

"Consumption is increasing every year along with improving living standards and rapid urbanisation," said Zhu Nianlin, the organisation's chairman.

INDIGESTION?

He estimated that Chinese eat about 150,000 tonnes of mooncakes -- translating into 600-750 million pieces -- in September and October alone.

A pity, therefore, that the humble mooncake had been dragged through the mud of late, leaving a sour taste.

In scandals over the past years, it was revealed that some Chinese companies had recycled mooncakes from the previous year, while others had used lotus paste or other ingredients that had long since passed expiry dates.

But there's a flip side for Hong Kong bakers: rising demand for their product means higher prices for ingredients, squeezing many bakeries. Even duck eggs are costlier following an outbreak of bird flu in Vietnam and China.

"A lot of small manufacturers cannot afford quality ingredients," said Janus Chan at Kee Wah Bakery, one of Hong Kong's biggest mooncake vendors.

"The supply of quality egg yolks has decreased because of the bird flu. They killed all chickens and ducks in May ... This year the lotus seed prices are up by 50 percent from last year."

Kee Wah alone consumes about 2 million salted duck eggs for its 1 million traditional mooncakes, and another 2 to 3 million smaller versions designed for the more health-conscious or waistline-aware.

cool..Starbuck mooncakes huh? I always wanted to try Haagen Dazs ones but never got the chance while in HK.

mooncakes in coffee flavours??
that must taste terrible

The city buys some 5 million mooncakes a year, worth more than $20 million.

US-dollar or HK-dollar?

Coffee mooncakes? ... eeh I don't know about that :D but mooncakes sure taste good; especially the ones made in HK :D

but they are so expensive!

omigod i never knew mooncakes had more calories than a big mac. i would like to die now.

but they are so expensive!

yeah, they are getting more expensive...

there is ice cream mooncakes too

they're not expensive if they're worth it. mooncakes in perth are expensvie because they're about the same price and are really shit. you've not tasted bad mooncake till you come to perth, and perhaps other chinese minority places too.

They look pretty good!

Mooncakes are damn expensive. Are they coated with gold or something? In Sydney, you can buy a container of four mooncakes for close to $100 while a cheaper one would cost only $12. What the hell?

^but this kind of mooncake is special favour,like cream and coffee,
and in sydney or other chinatown just can buy trational mooncake only i think....

HK's slice of mainland mooncake market grows
22 September 2010
SCMP

"Made in Hong Kong" baby food and formula are not the only products craved by mainlanders. The city's bakers of mooncakes are grabbing a bigger slice of the 14 billion yuan (HK$16.2 billion) market for the mid-autumn delicacy across the border.

Maxim's says it expects a double-digit rise in sales at its 50 shops and more than 1,000 retail outlets on the mainland this year. To boost sales, the company has even established an online shop on the country's biggest shopping portal, Taobao.

Another baker, Wing Wah, has also seen demand from the other side of the border jump 20 per cent.

Poor food safety standards on the mainland means added cachet for the "Made in Hong Kong" label, allowing Maxim's and Wing Wah to sell their mooncakes at higher prices than in Hong Kong.

According to the China General Chamber of Commerce, the country is expected to make 250,000 tonnes of mooncakes, bringing in revenue of 14 billion yuan this autumn.

Aside from directly run shops in the Pearl River Delta, Maxim's, Wing Wah and Tai Pan, another Hong Kong cake maker, have expanded their networks to other parts of the nation, opening counters in big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang, Dalian and Chengdu.

Beijing resident Xie Ningning, on a last-minute mid-autumn shopping trip in the capital, yesterday bought a box of mooncakes for a friend at a Wing Wah counter. The gift box containing eight mooncakes with different flavours cost him 480 yuan.

"I've been buying this brand for almost a decade. I love its delicate taste. It never changes," the wine trader said.

Mooncakes, linked with the mythical legend of moon goddess Chang'e, is a symbol of family unity and is a must-have item during the Mid-Autumn Festival. In recent years, they have become popular corporate gifts.

Usually round or rectangular, the cake can have different pastry and fillings depending on the region. The Cantonese style is the most popular; other styles come from Beijing, Suzhou, Yunnan and Chaoshan. A mooncake usually features a thin crust and a thick filling of lotus seed paste, melon seed paste and ham, chicken or egg yolks.

Hong Kong bakeries first entered the mainland market in the 1980s. Leung Suet-yee, a spokeswoman for Wing Wah, said its products were initially sold on the snack carts of trains running between Hong Kong and Guangzhou and were ideal gifts for relatives as they visited their hometowns on the mainland.

But with duties as high as 40 per cent at the time, the Hong Kong-made mooncakes were just too pricey for most mainlanders. When the delicacy was included as one of the tariff-free products under the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement signed in 2003, their retail price fell by up to 30 per cent.

Hong Kong mooncakes are considered of better quality than mainland-made ones. In 2001, the mainland industry was hit when a well-known bakery, Nanjing Guanshengyuan, reportedly put year-old filling in new cake crusts.

Hong Kong brands have become better known thanks to the millions of mainland tourists who now visit the city every year.

Kang Yali, a distributor for Tai Pan snowy mooncakes in Beijing, developed her business from one small booth to more than 30 counters over the past four years. Sales have jumped from 1,000 boxes to more than 7,000 this year.

"People like it for its fresh taste and good quality," Kang said. "I plan to order 5,000 more boxes from Tai Pan [to sell in Beijing] next year."

Despite the impressive growth, the sales of Hong Kong cakes are still only a small fraction of those of some mainland brands.

In Shanghai, Xing Hua Lou has always been a top seller, while the market leader in Beijing is Dao Xiang Cun. Guangzhou Restaurant is a major seller in the Guangdong market.

"Our advantage lies in the price," said a spokeswoman for Dao Xiang Cun, which supplied 2,300 tonnes of mooncakes in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province this year. "We are very optimistic about remaining number one in Beijing."

According to Dao Xiang Cun, a box of double-egg-yolk cakes with lotus seed paste cakes costs 56 yuan. The same type sold in a Wing Wah gift box is priced at 298 yuan in some Beijing shopping centres, while Maxim's costs 288 yuan. These prices are even higher than in Hong Kong, where Wing Wah and Maxim's charge HK$308 and HK$175 respectively.

Higher transport costs are among the reasons for the bigger price tag, according to the distributors.

"What we are actually targeting is the high-end market. It's no doubt the mainland market will exceed that of Hong Kong," Leung said.