Why is the "Sky Mooncake" rolled back?

Moon cakes need to return to the origin

The Mid -Autumn Festival is approaching, and the purchase of moon cake itself is also a trouble.

In the context of the national rectification of "sky -high moon cakes", some merchants played text games, and "moon cakes" did not call "moon cakes" and changed to "cakes"; removed the word "moon cake" and publicized the "Mid -Autumn Festival package gift box" to the outside world. Essence

Some people tease that the trap hidden on the moon cake is even more than the type of filling. For example, by adding various valuable fillings, pursuing excessive luxury packaging or mixed sales of high -priced products, hype moon cake prices.

The cake is still that cake, but the box swells every year.

State's shot to rectify the "sky -high moon cake"

In June of this year, the four departments such as the National Development and Reform Commission jointly issued the "Announcement on Controlling" Sky "Moon Cake and Promoting the Healthy Development of the Industry" (hereinafter referred to as the "Announcement"), and implemented key supervision of boxes with a unit price of more than 500 yuan.

The staff of the Beijing Haidian District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau checked the packaging of moon cakes. Photo/Yuyuan Photo

Why do you implement key supervision of moon cakes in boxes of more than 500 yuan? The announcement pointed out that moon cakes, as traditional popular foods in my country, most prices are relatively close to the people. From the perspective of market conditions, about 99%of boxes of moon cakes are less than 500 yuan. However, the "sky -high moon cakes" that have appeared in recent years are mainly concentrated in boxes that only account for about 1%of the market sales of about 1%of the market sales.

Don't look at the "sky -high moon cake" share, but the harm is not small.

The relevant person in charge of the three squirrels told China News Weekly that moon cakes are a kind of Mid -Autumn Festival cuisine accumulated in the connotation of traditional Chinese culture. Some companies are hyped up moon cake prices by adding various valuable fillings, pursuing excessive luxury packaging or mixed sales of high -priced products. These phenomena not only deviate from the origin of traditional culture, promote the waste of extravagance, have a adverse effect on the social atmosphere, and may even be alienated into a carrier of corruption.

So how can we control the "sky -high moon cake"?

According to the National Development and Reform Commission's interpretation of the "Announcement", in recent years, some companies have sold or sold or mixed soldier, bird's nest, ginseng, Cordyceps sinensis, tea, white wine, jewelry, silk scarf, etc. The value, its value is much higher than the moon cakes, but still sells in the name of "moon cake", becoming the main source of "sky -high" moon cakes.

From this this year, it is clearly required that the operators are not allowed to sell other products, such as mixing tea, health products, wine and other products in the moon cake gift box, especially valuable products or luxury goods; Essence

At the same time, the state also takes the governance of "sky -high moon cakes" with limited packaging.

In fact, packaging occupies most of the cost of moon cake gift boxes. Soochow Securities has calculated the moon cakes of Guangzhou Restaurant. For the exquisite packaging of moon cakes, the cost of packaging materials is about 14.04 yuan per kilogram, and even the cost of the raw material and energy consumption of the moon cake itself is 12.45 yuan per kilogram. This also means that most of the moon cakes bought by consumers in the market are actually spent on packaging.

On August 15th, the "Restricted Product Excessive Packaging Requirement Food and Cosmetics" (GB 23350-2021) National Standard No. 1 modification form was officially implemented. This standard focuses on reducing the number of packaging layers. The number of packaging layers of moon cakes and rice dumplings is reduced from no more than 4 layers to up to 3 layers; compressed packaging gaps; reduced packaging costs, sales prices of more than 100 yuan and more than 100 yuan and more than 100 yuan and more than 100 yuan and more than 100 yuan and more than 100 yuan and more than 100 yuan or more Dangzi, reduced the proportion of packaging costs from 20%to 15%from 20%.

After a combination of fist, the effect is immediate. China Bakery Food Sugar Industry Association's "2022 China Mooncake Industry Development Trends" report predicts that under a series of new rules of moon cakes, the "sky-high" moon cakes with a price of more than 500 yuan this year will be greatly reduced. The price is mainly concentrated in 80 yuan-260 Between Yuan.

There is still a fish that missed the net on the online platform

So, is the "sky -high moon cake" really disappeared?

China News Weekly enters "moon cakes" in an e -commerce platform, and the unit price of the boxed moon cakes searched is mainly concentrated in the range of 80 yuan to 300 yuan. However, when you search for the "price reduction" method, it is found that there are hundreds of moon cake styles with a maximum price of 499 yuan or 498 yuan.

Moon cakes with a price of 499 yuan appear. Figure/A certain e -commerce platform

Not only that, there are also sales phenomena in individual platforms. China News Weekly discovered on a social platform that some of the moon cake gift box launched by individual businesses are paired with red wine, as well as tea and tea sets, and said that they also support customization.

In this regard, the National Development and Reform Commission also posted a recent article that due to the variety of online sales forms and low transparency in sales behavior, it is an area where the probability of "sky -high" moon cakes has occurred in recent years.

In addition to "wiping balls", there are companies playing text games- "Moon Cake" is not called "moon cake", and it is called "pastry".

In the Mid -Autumn Festival this year, Ge Difan launched eight "Mid -Autumn Festival Limited Gift Box" series with the theme of "Non -Vatican Hidden Clouds", of which 4 of them exceeded 500 yuan. It is worth noting that the above -mentioned products are very similar to moon cakes in the form of packaging and product form, but the company's name is "pastry", not "moon cakes".

The text games are still playing with Hagens Dazs. This year, there are 7 Mid -Autumn Festival sets of Hagen Dazs and the Louvre Museum. There are 7 models of the Mid -Autumn Festival sets, of which 5 of them are more than 500 yuan. The most expensive one is the Louvre Mid -Autumn Festival set gift box with a price of 999 yuan. However, when Hagagen -Dazas official Weibo released product propaganda on June 9, this product was also called "Mooncake Ice Cream Gift Box". In response to such practices, Yue Tao, a lawyer of Beijing Hepuke Firm, said in an interview with the China Consumer News that the merchant called the moon cake "Mid -Autumn Festival pastry" and sold it at a price of more than 500 yuan. It is to play "wipe the ball". This kind of behavior violates the provisions of Article 14, paragraph 4, paragraph 4 of the Price Law, that the behavior of merchants is suspected of improper price behavior, that is, "using false or misunderstanding price means to trick consumers or other operators and other operators and other operators. Trading".

Lawyer Sun Rongda, partner of Beijing Dacheng Law Firm, told China News Weekly that theoretically, the price control provisions issued by relevant departments such as the Development and Reform Commission and other relevant departments are aimed at moon cakes and do not include other pastries. However, judging from the common sense of consumers, the above products are almost the same as the moon cakes, whether it is the product form and the sales cycle, so it should also be adjusted by the price control regulations.

Faced with the seller to avoid supervision, the State Development and Reform Commission has also been deployed recently. Daily monitoring online moon cake sales, and multi -channel collection of problems involving "sky -high" moon cakes. The National Development and Reform Commission also said that the relevant e -commerce platforms have been urged to rectify and transferred a group of problem clues involving a batch of moon cakes involving a unit price of more than 500 yuan. Investigation and punishment.

"The national level to strike the" sky -high price "moon cake, etc., which provides very good help for the healthy, benign and orderly development of the entire industry." Zhu Danpeng, vice president of the Guangdong Food Safety Guarantee Promotion Association, said that although there are some companies and businesses In "the crime of the wind" or "playing the ball", but the relevant national departments will also take a shot to rectify.

Moon cakes should return to the origin

Behind the "sky -high moon cake" is the essence of the company's profit.

In fact, moon cakes are a good profit. The sales of moon cakes in Guangzhou Restaurant ranked first in the same industry, known as the "Moon Cake King". According to the past financial reports, from 2017 to 2021, the revenue of the moon cake business in Guangzhou Restaurant was 898 million yuan, 1.038 billion yuan, 1.192 billion yuan, 1.378 billion yuan, and 1.521 billion yuan, respectively. It can be seen that selling moon cakes only before the Mid -Autumn Festival can bring more than 40 % of the Guangzhou restaurant.

Moreover, selling moon cakes is quite high. Taking the data of Guangzhou Restaurant in 2021 as an example, the company's Mooncake series products are as high as 56.46%, which is the company with the highest gross profit margin of the company. It is also maintained at more than 63%(no moon cake income was announced in 2020); "King of Zongzi" Wufangzhai's meal business, egg products, pastries and other business income in 2020 have declined. E00 million yuan increased to 185 million yuan in 2020.

Why is the gross profit margin of moon cakes so high?

An analysis of the person in charge of a food company's moon cake business believes that this may be related to the production cost of moon cakes. "Moon cakes do not have a high technical threshold in terms of raw materials, production technology, etc. For example, the raw materials of cake skin mainly include flour, oil, sugar, eggs, etc.; As for the production technology, as the level of equipment mechanization and intelligence is getting higher and higher, the machine can largely replace artificially, and the efficiency is extremely high, which can meet market demand at any time. "

Guangzhou Restaurant's 2021 financial report shows that compared with the 1.521 billion yuan income brought by the moon cake business, the cost is only 662 million yuan. Among them, the direct materials of the moon cakes spent 504 million yuan, accounting for 33.14%of the revenue.

The relevant person in charge of the three squirrels also added that seasonal items such as moon cakes are one -time consumer attributes. Consumers are more purchased from gift delivery needs. In terms of daily expenses and profits of comprehensive companies, this may occur.

With high profits attracted, more and more enterprises enter the field of moon cakes. Ai Media Consultation data shows that Chinese moon cake companies have doubled in the past ten years. As of July this year, my country's mooncake companies have registered 40,478. The scale of the moon cake market is also rising, from 13.18 billion yuan in 2015 to 21.81 billion yuan in 2021, and it is expected that China's moon cake sales will reach 24.38 billion yuan in 2022.

But in the final analysis, the essence of moon cakes is still a festive consumer product. In addition to exquisite packaging, the brand should be more prominent, maybe the strong humanity of the traditional festival. In Zhu Danpeng's view, after curbing "sky -high" moon cakes, festivals such as festivals such as moon cakes will return to the attributes of mass consumer goods and return to the origin of traditional culture.

Author: Yu Yuan ([email protected])

Edit: Li Zhiquan

Operation editor: Xiao Ran

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