With the Mid-Autumn Festival approaching, mooncakes have become a hot topic in the market.
Recently, many departments have introduced regulatory measures for "sky-high" mooncakes, and also proposed to implement key supervision on boxed mooncakes with a unit price of more than 500 yuan.
As a result, there are many more mooncake gift boxes priced at 499 yuan on the Internet.
But do these 499 yuan gift boxes really use "high-end ingredients" as described by the merchants, so there are "expensive and reasonable" ones that sell for 499 yuan on the red line?
A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily found that the factory price of a piece of Internet celebrity custard Liuxin mooncake produced by a manufacturer is less than 6 yuan. The mooncake with fillings such as abalone and bird's nest is also 1 to 2 yuan more expensive than it. This means that the 499 yuan mooncake gift boxes that are stuck at the 500 yuan regulatory "red line" price this year, although not outside the red line, are actually still sky-high mooncakes.
Phenomenon
The most expensive mooncake this year
All-color list price 499.99 yuan
A reporter from Beiqing Daily searched for moon cakes on the e-commerce platform on August 17 and found that this year's "high-priced" moon cakes have a "price ceiling". Although the most expensive moon cake gift boxes on multiple e-commerce platforms come from different manufacturers, brands and businesses, but The price is all 499.99 yuan.
According to incomplete statistics from a reporter from Beiqing Daily, on an e-commerce platform, there are more than 1,600 product links for mooncake gift boxes priced from 499 yuan to 499.99 yuan.
Although there are no mooncakes priced at more than 500 yuan on the platform, some mooncake gift boxes priced at 499.99 yuan have to pay a high shipping fee ranging from 190 yuan to 600 yuan.
Some merchants said that the price of the gift boxes they sell is not 499 yuan, mainly because the platform has a price limit for moon cake gift boxes, so a high shipping fee is added, the purpose is to let buyers contact them directly.
These merchants also said that they actually have more than 500 yuan of high-end moon cake gift boxes, but they cannot be sold online.
In June this year, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Commerce, and the State Administration for Market Regulation jointly issued the "Announcement on Curbing "Sky-High" Mooncakes and Promoting the Healthy Development of the Industry" (hereinafter referred to as the "Announcement"), explicitly encouraging operators To produce and sell boxed mooncakes of good quality and low price, it is proposed to implement key supervision on boxed mooncakes with a unit price of more than 500 yuan; operators should properly store the transaction information of boxed mooncakes with a unit price of more than 500 yuan for 2 years for the preparation of relevant departments. Check according to law, etc.
A reporter from Beiqing Daily compared the sales prices of some high-priced mooncake gift boxes in the past two years and found that some mooncakes have indeed dropped in price after the introduction of this "red line".
So the price of a mooncake gift box of "Hong Kong Maxim's" priced at 578 yuan has been "dropped" to less than 500 yuan in some supermarkets and e-commerce.
A mooncake gift box from "Royal Tea Restaurant" is priced at 499 yuan in a boutique supermarket and 488 yuan in e-commerce.
And its offline sales staff said that this mooncake used to be more than 500 yuan, and there are regulatory requirements this year, so the price is controlled within 500 yuan.
A merchant who had previously made a 2888 yuan mooncake gift box also said that the most expensive mooncake gift box it launched this year was 499 yuan.
A reporter from the Beiqing Daily visited a number of offline supermarkets and found that the most expensive mooncake gift boxes currently do not exceed 500 yuan.
The most in the supermarket is the gift box between 150 yuan and 300 yuan.
doubt
499.99 yuan moon cake
How much is it worth?
Although the "red line" of the high-priced moon cake gift box card has reduced the price, are the expensive moon cakes really as "valuable" and worth the money as advertised by the merchants?
During the visit, a reporter from Beiqing Daily found that in order to highlight the price of moon cake gift boxes in previous years, some other products other than moon cakes were often sold together, some of which were red wine, ginseng and other supplements, and some fashionable matching were silk scarves, small household appliances and so on.
However, this year, according to the new national standard moon cake "should not be mixed with other products", the "tying-selling style" of many high-priced moon cake gift boxes has been curbed, but sellers still use "high-end ingredients" as the reason for the high price of moon cake gift boxes.
So, the question is, are the most expensive mooncake gift boxes on the Internet really worth so much?
On an e-commerce platform, a 6-piece mooncake gift box with a sales price of 499 yuan and an advertisement price of 388 yuan on the details page claims that each mooncake has 12 grams of wet bird's nest; the black truffle mooncake gift box with a net weight of 600 grams is priced at 499.99 Yuan; 6 pieces of moon cake gift box filled with durian filling of Musang King also sold for 499 yuan; there are also gift boxes containing abalone, ginseng, Buddha jumping over the wall filling moon cakes, and the gift boxes of moon cakes with cuttlefish juice were sold for more than 400 yuan.
Does the use of these so-called high-end ingredients really greatly increase the production cost of moon cakes?
"Abalone stuffing is not much more expensive than fruit stuffing, and each piece is only one or two yuan higher." A person in charge of a moon cake manufacturer said.
An industry insider has calculated an account for the Beiqing Daily reporter: Take bird's nest mooncake as an example, although the wholesale price of a dried bird's nest may be around 20 yuan/gram, the wholesale price of broken bird's nest is only 0.5 yuan/gram.
Due to various reasons, merchants cannot use the whole bird's nest as the filling for moon cakes. In addition, the dry bird's nest has a foaming rate. In this way, even if 12 grams of wet bird's nest is added to each moon cake, the cost is higher than that of ordinary moon cakes. , but only increased by about 2 yuan.
What's more, such moon cake fillings are generally provided by specialized filling manufacturers, and the purchase price of the manufacturer is much lower than the wholesale price calculated above, so the increased cost will be further reduced.
reveal
The cost price of a single moon cake is mostly 3.5 yuan to 11 yuan, and the gross profit margin of moon cake is high
The above viewpoints can be seen from the financial reports of some listed companies.
According to the financial report of Guangzhou Restaurant, in 2021, the gross profit margin of the company's moon cake series products will be as high as 56.46%, and the revenue will be 1.521 billion yuan during the reporting period.
The average gross profit margin of all businesses in Guangzhou Restaurant that year was 37.22%.
Yuanzu shares disclosed in its 2021 annual report that the revenue from Chinese and Western cake gift boxes including moon cake gift boxes was 1.464 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 60% of the main business income, with a gross profit margin of 51.51%.
While the gross profit margin of the packaged food industry is generally between 20% and 40%, the current gross profit margin of moon cakes is considered "high level" in the food manufacturing industry.
In fact, the huge profits of the mooncake industry reflected in the financial reports of these listed companies are only the tip of the iceberg.
After all, companies such as Guangzhou Restaurant not only produce mooncake gift boxes of their own brand, but also OEM customized mooncake production for many hotels and large retail enterprises.
This part of the mooncakes was sold at a lower price, which also diluted the profit margin of its mooncakes.
So, how much does a moon cake cost?
A reporter from Beiqing Daily interviewed the person in charge of a large-scale moon cake customization factory. He said that the current market's more popular moon cakes, such as custard liuxin and durian liuxin, are mostly priced at 5 to 6 yuan per piece in the factory. Around, this is plus the price of a single moon cake independent packaging.
"The price of moon cakes will vary depending on the raw materials used, but in general, the ex-factory price will not be doubled or even more. At present, the competition from foundries is fierce, and everyone does not dare to increase the ex-factory price too much."
The statement of the person in charge has also been confirmed by some agencies.
Data from the Guosen Securities Economic Research Institute shows that the upper limit of the cost of a single moon cake usually does not exceed 11 yuan. If it is a common filling, the lower limit of the cost of a single moon cake is 3.5 yuan. It is estimated that there are 6-8 moon cakes in a moon cake gift box, which means The total production cost is 30-50 yuan/box.
focus on
Many departments have made heavy efforts to supervise the moon cake market in advance
Unlike previous years, this year's pre-Mid-Autumn Festival mooncakes have once again become a hot topic among netizens, but not because of various strange fillings as in previous years, but the frequent introduction of regulatory policies in recent times, including 500 yuan mooncake gift box Pricing "red line" regulations.
In June, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Commerce, and the State Administration for Market Regulation issued the "Announcement on Curbing "Sky-High" Mooncakes and Promoting the Healthy Development of the Industry.
In August, the General Administration of Market Supervision stated that the Mid-Autumn Festival and the National Day are coming soon. The State Administration for Market Supervision plans to study, formulate and issue notices, deploy and carry out centralized rectification work, strictly investigate and deal with excessive packaging of moon cakes and seriously rectify "high-priced" moon cakes.
At the beginning of August, the China Consumers Association and the China Bakery and Sugar Products Industry Association jointly stated that they will conduct consumption supervision on excessive packaging of moon cakes.
The No. 1 Amendment to the National Standard "Restriction of Excessive Packaging Requirements for Food and Cosmetics" implemented on August 15 stipulates that the number of packaging layers for moon cakes has been reduced from a maximum of four layers to a maximum of three layers, and the packaging materials shall not use precious metals And mahogany materials, moon cakes should not be mixed with other products, etc.
While promoting the "light packaging" of moon cakes, on August 17, the National Development and Reform Commission once again stated that the "high-priced" moon cakes that have appeared in recent years are often accompanied by luxury packaging, the use of rare ingredients, and the sale of high-priced products. These problems are mainly concentrated. Among the boxed mooncakes with a unit price of more than 500 yuan, which only account for about 1% of market sales.
Carry out a moon cake cost survey as appropriate to understand the real cost and profit, and announce it to the public in an appropriate way.
Enterprises with many problems will be interviewed, and violations of laws and regulations will be seriously investigated and publicly exposed in accordance with the law.
The relevant person in charge of the National Development and Reform Commission also introduced in an interview with the media that according to the cost survey of the National Development and Reform Commission and the data of industry organizations and e-commerce platforms, from the market situation for many years, the average production cost of boxed mooncakes is about 70 yuan per box.
Some industry analysts said that in recent years, the country has continued to crack down on "high-priced" moon cakes to make the entire consumption more rational, healthy and orderly, and also to make the moon cake industry develop in a healthy and healthy way.
View
The price of 499 yuan is a "shaking smart" to evade supervision
According to iiMedia Research, from 2016 to 2021, the market size of China's moon cake gift box is on the rise.
According to data, as of July 2022, the number of registered mooncake companies in China has reached 40,478.
However, companies imitate each other and products converge, and the mooncake market has long been a red sea. Even so, each company has not given up the business that only lasts for two months each year. Of course, it is the "high profit" of the mooncake gift box.
Analysts said that the introduction of the "red line" of 500 yuan by the regulatory authorities is not a one-size-fits-all ban on selling, but only stated that they will focus on supervision.
In order to avoid the regulatory requirement that "transaction information should be properly kept for 2 years for the relevant departments to check according to the law", merchants have set the price of high-priced products at 499 yuan. The customers of these businesses are "afraid to check" and "can't bear to check".
The regulatory authorities frequently take "sky-high" moon cakes, not only to avoid waste, but also to avoid corruption caused by such high-priced moon cakes.
The "high-priced moon cakes" created a "false prosperity" in the seasonal market, and also made moon cakes a face commodity that "people who buy them don't eat them, and those who eat them don't buy them."
Moon cakes are not only traditional delicacies, but also entrust and inherit the cultural heritage of the Chinese nation for thousands of years and the spiritual core of attaching importance to family and reunion.
For the 499 yuan mooncake gift box, regulatory authorities and platforms should pay attention to avoid the implementation of the new regulations becoming a mere formality, and consumers must also be vigilant.
Merchants should focus more on how to improve the quality and taste of moon cakes, and how to develop moon cakes that are more suitable for current consumption, rather than relying on "shaking smart" to avoid supervision and continue to make huge profits. Such a business development idea is destined to be cannot last long.
This group of articles / intern Zhuang Daiying reporter Zhang Xin
Coordination/Photo courtesy of Yu Meiying/Visual China