Exquisite Wenchuang Mooncakes Earn Eyeballs, Freshly Baked Pastry Mooncakes Steal the Show
The "North-South Mooncake War" escalated again
Our reporter Yang Tianyue
As the Mid-Autumn Festival approaches, the annual "Mooncake War" has kicked off again.
Recently, hospitals, museums, tobacco factories, fashion brands, milk tea brands, etc. have launched moon cake marketing. Some stores in Beijing Daoxiang Village, Bao Shifu, Hema Xiansheng and other stores have also launched freshly baked moon cakes, which are welcomed by many diners.
On the one hand, there are more and more dim sum shops selling freshly baked moon cakes, and on the other hand, cross-border innovations of exquisite moon cakes are eye-catching.
In the "Mooncake War" that has lasted for many years, the North and South mooncake markets have gradually differentiated. Different marketing paths have been found, which has also brought more choices for diners.
Cross-border cultural and creative moon cakes "out of the circle" again
"The people at the end of the long queue can no longer tell whether they are registering or buying mooncakes." Not long ago, the Minhang Staff Canteen of the Shanghai Mental Health Center launched the mooncakes "600 Wanping South Road", each with the "Shanghai Spirit" printed on it. "Health Center" and the image of a "brain".
The appearance of the Olympic medal "golden inlaid with jade", the gimmick "from the mental hospital" and the super cost-effective price of 8 yuan each make this moon cake quickly "fire out of the circle".
Since this mooncake is not for sale, there were a lot of enthusiastic calls on social platforms to "register to buy mooncakes in groups" and "begging for purchase".
The reporter noticed that although the Shanghai Mental Health Center has clearly stated that this moon cake can only be purchased by employees in the cafeteria, there are still many purchases on the Taobao platform. The price of 6 moon cakes has risen to a maximum of 499 yuan, and there are many others. Merchants sell "counterfeit" products with the same pattern.
In recent years, it is not uncommon for cross-border marketing to co-brand traditional IP or fashion trends in the mooncake market.
This year’s Mid-Autumn Festival, the "Disappearing Mooncake" jointly created by China Hotel and Guangzhou Museum restores the five flavors in the "Mid-Autumn Cake Material and Two Recipes for Making Mid-Autumn Cakes" in the Guangbo Collection; Songhe Tower and Suzhou Museum cross-border cooperation with Wen Zhengming "Three Wonders Picture Roll" was inspired to launch the "Mid-Autumn Festival to the Moon" mooncake gift box; Xinghualou co-branded with the international food giant Nestlé to launch plant-meat five-core mooncakes closely following Fengkou.
The reporter noticed that these beautifully crafted moon cake gift boxes with profound cultural connotations are mainly Cantonese-style moon cakes.
Colorful pie crusts are often beautiful in appearance, and some also contain elements such as artistic words and hand-painted patterns. They are wrapped with traditional or trendy fillings, which makes many diners shout more and more "unwilling to take it" on social platforms. Putting on "moon cakes" has also become one of the more and more important functions of these gift boxes.
Freshly baked moon cakes are selling well at the counter
Compared with the "pai noodles" of many cultural and creative moon cake gift boxes, freshly baked moon cakes have won the taste buds of many diners with the best taste of freshly baked moon cakes.
The reporter noticed that there are currently 9 stores in Beijing Daoxiang Village selling freshly baked mooncakes. Since the launch, there have been long queues at freshly baked stalls.
"It took more than half an hour to buy. The freshly baked mooncakes are crispy and fragrant. It's worth waiting for so long," said Uncle Li, a citizen who was shopping at the stall.
The "net celebrity" Chinese pastry brand Master Bao also launched hand-baked mooncakes this Mid-Autumn Festival. The cake crust is shattered with a bite and is topped with classic fillings such as lotus seed paste and egg yolk, which surprised many "fans".
"The moon cakes I bought at home could not be eaten in a month, but the freshly baked moon cakes I bought this time were gone in less than two days." Said Xiao Jiang, a citizen.
According to the staff of Master Bao’s store, since its launch, the popularity of freshly baked mooncakes has even been as popular as the classic product, pork floss and beaver.
A month ago, Hema Workshop’s Soviet-style freshly baked mooncakes were also available in stores across the country.
In addition to the fresh meat, custard liquid, mustard salmon and other flavours in the past, the Beijing area has also introduced rattan pepper flavour crispy beef mooncakes this year. The tripe, porcini mushroom sauce, bean curd, yuba and bamboo shoots are skewered together with the fragrant and spicy rattan pepper pot base, and red oil is mixed with sesame seeds to make a "cold pot skewers and grilled mooncakes".
According to Hema, in the past six years, Hema Workshop has developed a total of more than 30 freshly baked Soviet-style moon cakes, and successfully promoted this Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai exclusive snack to the whole country.
"It is estimated that the overall sales of moon cakes in Hema Workshop this year will increase by 15%." Hema related person in charge said.
"North and South Mooncakes" embarked on different marketing paths
The reporter recently visited various supermarkets and found that in the Mid-Autumn Festival gift market, well-packaged and exquisitely crafted Cantonese-style mooncakes have become the first choice for consumers to visit relatives and friends, and in various dim sum shops, freshly baked mooncakes that are fragrant everywhere are freshly baked. , Is the variety that diners buy the most on a daily basis.
Hand-baked mooncakes are made and sold on the spot, and have a short storage period. They tend to pay more attention to the crispy taste, while the Cantonese-style mooncakes, which are the main gift market, compete wildly in shape and appearance.
The VIP Hotel has launched a chess-shaped moon cake gift box this year. The square and square red gift box contains chess piece-shaped moon cake boxes such as "cars", "horses" and "cannons". The colorful moon cakes inside include traditional fillings such as white lotus egg yolk and jujube mud. There are also innovative flavors such as lemon cheese and osmanthus wine stuffed cheese.
The Taoshan skin mooncakes of the National Museum contain various shapes such as petals, jade rabbits, and peaches, which are small and exquisite.
In order to reduce the waste caused by packaging and discarding, the moon cake gift box launched by Hey Tea this year also fully considers the secondary use of the box. It uses a strong and highly transparent acrylic box as the inner packaging. After eating the moon cake, it can also be used as a storage box. Put cosmetics, blind box toys, stationery and other items. Tanggong Hotel’s mooncakes this year are packaged in handbags. After eating the mooncakes, you can still carry the handbags for shopping, realizing the reuse of mooncake packaging.