The Mid-Autumn Festival is only a few months from now, and if you’re one of those selling mooncakes, then there’s no better time to prepare for the sale than today. For example, you have to think about the mooncake box design. You want to make sure that you can already satisfy their craving even before they open the package.
Planning your marketing strategies and product presentation also gives you an upper hand against competitors and allows you to make the most of the mooncake festival.
Why Are Mooncakes Popular?
While there are no official statistics, mooncakes are a well-known delicacy in Singapore for many reasons:
1. Presence of Chinese
The city-state is multiracial, but more than 73% of them are of Chinese descent. Over 35% also speak Mandarin. The history of mooncakes, meanwhile, goes back to China, particularly during the Tang Dynasty. In other words, the delicacy had enough time to take root and become part of the tradition of Chinese families, who later migrated to different parts of the world.
2. Lifting of Gift-giving Ban
Mooncakes are incredibly popular in China, but there was a time when their sale significantly declined. It occurred from 2013 to 2015. During this time, the country banned giving gifts to public officials to showcase austerity and restore public faith. Back then, various corruption scandals rocked the government.
Although the focus was on luxury brands, other products felt the effects too. Fortunately, in 2015, the country lifted it, which increased the sales forecast for the mooncakes.
The lift was essential as well. For the Chinese, the Mid-Autumn Festival is a time for family reunions, and mooncakes make excellent gifts when they have to travel back to China.
3. Assimilation
Eating and giving away mooncakes is primarily a Chinese custom. Globalization, however, is making it a worldwide affair. In Singapore, other nationalities such as Indians and Malaysians eventually caught on with this Chinese custom.
They might buy mooncakes not only to celebrate the festival but also to give them as presents to their Chinese friends. Others may be buying the delicacy out of curiosity. Whatever the reason, this delicious and sweet treat has now become a global phenomenon.
4. Different Flavors
The traditional mooncake usually contains lotus seed paste or red bean paste. It may also have some salted duck eggs. Both create a delicate balance of sweetness and saltiness.
Today, however, you can already come across a wide variety of flavors. It’s no longer surprising to come across pastries with matcha green tea, chocolate, and even ice cream as fillings.
In 2017, Goodwood Park Hotel in Singapore introduced snowskin mooncakes with root beer and apple cider. A year before that, it sold the bakery product infused with gin pineapple.
Not everyone might be happy with the flavors or even with the ideas. For them, they aren’t authentic mooncakes. The varieties, though, make the pastry more endearing to people with more eclectic taste buds.
5. Complicated Baking Process
Mooncakes are part of Asian culture, but they do not usually belong in the kitchen. This is because they’re not the easiest pastry to make. The process is not only complicated but also time-consuming.
In countries like Singapore, time is of the essence. Spending a lot of it in the kitchen may be counterproductive, especially when they can buy a better quality in their nearest bakeshops.
Nobody really knows the future of mooncakes, but as of today and perhaps in the next few years, it will continue to thrive. As a retailer or wholesaler of this pastry, that’s your opportunity to capture a new market or retain the existing one.
