Mooncakes are also "rolled inside"! From five kernels and egg yolks to crayfish and low sugar, would you buy hundreds of "new-style" moon cakes?

mooncake consumers are lost in the " inner roll " mooncake taste.

Li Yan (pseudonym) who works in Beijing buys a box of mooncakes for her parents every Mid-Autumn Festival. According to his memories, in previous years, he usually selected from the traditional five-ren , bean paste and other flavors, but in the past two years, the flavors of moon cakes have become more and more, and he has also begun to consider buying new flavors, such as jasmine cheese. Heart, , taro paste and so on.

Image source: Every reporter can take photos of Yang A box of a certain brand of low-sugar mooncakes, but after seeing the news that knows low-sugar mooncakes caused some people to have diarrhea, Li Yan reminded his parents not to eat that box of mooncakes again. May have diarrhea".

mooncakes have embarked on the new consumer track. Basic models such as five kernels, bean paste, jujube mud mooncakes , etc. have not been able to meet the needs of young consumers, and the demand side has forced the industry, _strong4span crayfish, span4span strong54 Mooncakes with taro mud and low sugar flavors are on the stage .

time-honored brand Daoxiangcun said in an interview with the "Daily Economic News" reporter that, driven by the entry of tea, catering and other brands into the mooncake market, consumers' demand for innovative mooncakes is growing. Guochao Cultural and Creative mooncakes, parent-child handmade mooncakes, and pet mooncakes followed one after another, challenging traditional mooncake brands, which required traditional enterprises to innovate and build core competitiveness.

Source: Every time there was correspondent Yang can be taken

"Z generation" moon cake consumption to lead the new flavors

There are still people who care about whether five-core mooncakes is delicious or not?

Around 2013, the topic of "Five-Nen Mooncakes Rolling Out of the Mooncake World" sparked a controversy among netizens over the taste of mooncakes. At that time, the Beijing News article was titled "Five-Nen Mooncakes: Actually I Still The report of "Good" mentioned that Wuren mooncakes were called "dark cuisine" by netizens at the time on the Internet, but sales in offline stores were not affected.

However,There is no answer to this topic that was debated on the Internet at the time, but consumers have no time to argue. At that time, the opponents of Wuren mooncakes were lotus seed paste, egg yolk and red bean paste, but now some new mooncake flavors have occupied the public's attention.

The inner volume of mooncake flavors is almost in sync with the "Generation Z" gradually becoming the main consumer. Data from iiMedia Consulting shows that 76.5% of "Gen Z" consumers said that the new flavor of is their first choice for buying mooncakes .

In 2014, Maxim launched a custard flow heart mooncake. Although in today’s view, custard flow heart is no longer a novel flavor, but at that time, lotus paste and bean paste In the moon cake market dominated by five ren, the custard stream is considered to be a major innovative category, and it has attracted consumers' pursuit once it was launched. A consumer who was working in Shenzhen recalled that at that time, custard Liuxin mooncakes were difficult to buy, and he entrusted a friend to help to try it out.

Around 2016, the novel flavors of mooncakes began to become common.

The most direct manifestation is in the industry research report released that year. The "2017 China Mooncake Industry Market Prospect Research Report" issued by the China Commercial Industry Research Institute mentioned that in 2016, the variety of mooncake flavors increased significantly.Such as "pineapple flavor", "jujube mud", "purple sweet potato", "rose", "ice cream", etc., moon cakes of niche varieties have increased significantly (>300%), and their sales are also higher than those of "Dian style" and "Su style" Waiting for traditional moon cakes.

This report also mentioned that the innovative flavors of mooncakes that appeared that year also included durian flavor, mango flavor, oyster mushroom flavor, chocolate cloud leg, beef, nuts, etc., and in 2014 The Liuxin mooncakes that just appeared in 2015 have been “sizable and have been chosen by many companies.”

In 2017, the taste of mooncakes began to move closer to the food industry's enthusiasm. In 2016, the crayfish market ushered in an explosion and became the darling of the catering market. Shanghai's time-honored Jing'an Bakery launched the Cheese Crayfish Mooncake in 2017.

In 2018, more and more moon cake companies began to look for more innovative methods. In the same year, they launched Zhejiang’s dried vegetable moon cakes, Ningxia’s wolfberry moon cakes and so on.

The so-called innovative method of "traditional moon cakes + novel flavors" has continued to this day .

mooncake brand has also developed a variety of flavors to cater to consumer needs, such as the black truffle and flowed custard, flowed fruit, charcoal roasted coffee and other flavors launched by Suzhou Daoxiang Village.In a moon cake gift box launched by Hema, in addition to the common custard mooncakes in the previous two years, it also includes coffee chia seed cheese liquid heart flavor, small green mandarin orange liquid heart moon cakes and so on. At the beginning of September, on the test table of Hema's newly opened store in Hefei, also appeared in the internal test flavor stinky mandarin fish mooncake .

Picture source: every reporter Ke Yang photo

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A post-95 consumer told the "Daily Economic News" reporter that he did not like to eat moon cakes in the past. The new-style moon cakes of have indeed increased their interest in moon cakes .

Cross-border, national tide...everything can be mooncakes _

In terms of taste, some merchants took a fancy to this year’s hot big health track, and launched mooncakes that focus on health including plant meat and low sugar, especially low-sugar mooncakes, although they are not the first to launch this year, but However, this year's health trend triggered a consumption boom.

Daoxiang Village told the "Daily Economic News" reporter that this year's mooncakes, based on years of reducing oil and sugar, launched sugar alcohol mooncakes and low-sugar mooncakes, and were influenced by a "healthy and low-sugar" lifestyle. Of consumers like it.

In addition, the Cantonese mooncake brand Maxim also launched a low-sugar series of mooncakes this year.

When a reporter visited a Hema Xiansheng store in Chaoyang District, Beijing, the store staff told reporters that the best selling in the store is the low-sugar mooncakes launched by Maxim. The employee said that young people prefer to buy low-sugar mooncakes for health reasons. An employee of another Wumart supermarket also said that the buyers of low-sugar mooncakes are mainly young people, and some young people buy it for health reasons as a gift to their elders, while older consumers are not inclined to buy the price because of price considerations. More expensive low-sugar mooncakes.

However, at the beginning of September, some netizens appeared on the hot search for diarrhea after eating the mooncake gift box given by Zhihu, and whether low-sugar mooncakes are really healthy also caused consumers to worry about it. On September 8, Zhihu stated in an apology letter that the factory products have been tested by the manufacturer and an independent third-party organization.It meets the relevant quality standards of the food industry, but ignores the maltitol used to replace sucrose. may cause some people intolerance and cause physical discomfort has been contacted to recall all mooncakes.

vegetable meat mooncakes have not been accepted by most consumers since the very beginning. On August 3, Shanghai's time-honored brand Shen Dacheng announced on Weibo that it will launch a plant-based mooncake that uses soy protein and wheat protein to simulate the texture and taste of meat, and said "compared to Ordinary moon cakes have higher protein content, lower saturated fatty acid content, and lower calories..." 's Weibo caused controversy among consumers after it was released. At present, the relevant Weibo on Shen Dacheng's official Weibo has been deleted.

In terms of marketing, this year’s mooncakes have played a joint and blind box business favored by new consumer products.

This year, the time-honored brand Daoxiangcun and Miaocolanduo, "Peace Elite", Leleqi Tea, forest_span_span4 yuanspan and other brands have launched a joint gift box. Xinghualou and Nestle jointly launched the bean paste coffee Wuren moon cake.In addition, two time-honored brands Daoxiangcun and Xinghualou launched a Mid-Autumn Festival joint gift box. Daoxiangcun told the reporter of "Daily Economic News" that the cooperation with Xinghualou "competitive products" is the first time in the mooncake industry in the country, and it is also a benign interaction between two century-old enterprises, which is very meaningful.

There are also some brands that have nothing to do with mooncakes. and hi tea , in collaboration with specialty coffee brand Seesaw, launched the "Steal the Moon for You" Mid-Autumn Festival co-branded gift box. With the help of blind box gameplay, it contains two hidden mooncakes; Tea Yanyue Color launched the "Blind Selection of Tea Yan" teacups in the Mid-Autumn Gift Box; Liangpin Shop also launched the Mid-Autumn Blind Combination with Dunhuang IP box.

In addition, perhaps we have seen the dividends brought by the “national tide” in the first half of the year to brands such as shoes, clothing and cosmetics. Mooncake, a traditional food, has also been labelled as a national trend this year. In the Hemamen store, Guochao mooncakes have become one of the categories for sale.

From "five-nut moon cake" to this year's "low sugar moon cake", the taste and marketing of moon cakes are constantly updated. In this regard, Daoxiangcun said in an interview with a reporter from the "Daily Economic News" that the scale of the mooncake market has been expanding and the trend of brand concentration has become increasingly obvious. In addition to price, consumers pay more attention to the taste and quality of moon cakes. Especially affected by the epidemic, consumers' demand for “healthy mooncakes” has increased.

Chinese food industry analyst Zhu Danpeng believes that the development trajectory of moon cakes follows the trajectory of the entire Chinese economy.From the very beginning of material scarcity, to the second stage of material abundance, to the prevalence of face value management and health management in recent years, the entire mooncake industry has continued to push the industrial end to upgrade along with the consumer end, and at the same time, industrial end innovation, The speed of upgrades and iterations continues to accelerate.

Image source: every reporter Ke Yang photo

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"Laxatives", "people in the toilet", "just about to get up", knowing that the sugar substitute mooncakes given out this year's Mid-Autumn Festival caused diarrhea, and poured a pot of water on the hot sugar substitute mooncake market cold water.

In the apology letter, Zhihu explained that the cause of diarrhea is that maltitol, which is used to replace sucrose, may cause some people intolerance and cause physical discomfort. In the low-sugar mooncake ingredient list of Daoxiangcun and Maxim's currently on the market, the reporter of "Daily Business News" also discovered the ingredient of maltitol.

However, Daoxiang Village and Maxim did not respond positively to the reporter of "Daily Business News" regarding the issue of "knowing that low sugar moon cakes cause diarrhea."As for low-sugar mooncakes, Daoxiangcun said that “low-sugar mooncakes” are products that cater to the health needs of consumers. This involution in taste, taste, and craftsmanship promotes enterprises’ investment in innovation and research and development to better satisfy consumers. need.

The taste of mooncakes keeps rolling. Is there a food safety problem behind it? Zhu Danpeng agreed with this and pointed out that " In the process of innovation, food safety is the most critical dimension ". He believes that when companies are making innovations, upgrades and iterations, they must consider the audience's situation in all dimensions and multiple dimensions. They must consider the formula very well, and at the same time, they must have clear guidelines for consumers.

In addition to food safety issues, "Why are moon cakes more and more expensive" has also become one of the topics of consumers every Mid-Autumn Festival , many new-flavored moon cakes and cross-border joint moon cakes Basically a box of 200~300 yuan. When asked why they didn’t buy moon cakes, the price was too expensive, which became the reason some young consumers mentioned to the “Daily Economic News” reporter, “I spent two to three hundred to buy seven or eight moon cakes? It’s better to have a hot pot.” The moon cake premium is too high, the consumer also said.

Are mooncakes really getting more expensive? What is the reason behind this?

Daoxiang Village said that as consumption returns to rationality,In recent years, the price of moon cakes has gradually returned to "people-friendly and popular". However, due to the impact of the epidemic, the cost of labor, raw materials, and materials have risen, inevitably causing a fine-tuning of moon cake prices.

Take Daoxiang Village as an example, the peak production demand in previous years can reach 2000 people. So far this year, there are about 1,200 workers in the Beijing factory, and there is still a gap of about 300 to 500 workers. Due to the high mobility of production workers, the company has been hiring, and labor costs have increased by about 10% in recent years. However, in 2021, the price of Daoxiangcun mooncake is generally the same as in previous years.

Zhu Danpeng said that moon cakes are getting more and more expensive, and the cost pressure on the existing industry side is more due to the rigid demand on the consumer side . According to his analysis, the moon cakes with relatively high prices are mainly traditional big brands, Internet celebrity brands, light luxury brands and more tonal brands. On the whole, the current consumption scene of heavy consumers of mooncakes is nothing more than personal use and gifting. Therefore, different price bands have room for survival. The mooncake market in China as a whole has entered an era of full bloom and precise layering. .