Vietnam - Be careful with moon cakes!

VietNamNet Bridge – Chinese traders can satisfy any demand for stuffing of moon cakes from Vietnamese producers. They can supply all kinds of stuffing of dozens of tons within 1-2 days.

Moon cake market starts early, quality is out of control 

The moon cake market for this year’s mid-autumn festival has made an earlier start over last year, with higher prices due to rising input costs and soaring prices of food, rice and cooking gas, according to Tuoi Tre.

Many well-known bakeries including Kinh Do, Dong Khanh, Bibica and Thanh Long have started production for the moon festival since mid-July, two months ahead of the festival.

Most of the moon cake makers said prices this year would be 15 to 30 percent higher than last year since input cost soared.

“Flour, sugar and salted duck egg prices rose by 40 percent, 60 percent and 77 percent respectively,” Thanh Long Moon Cake Company said. Kinh Do, Bibica and Dong Khanh all announced price hikes of between 10 and 20 percent over last year, standing around VND65,000-120,000 (US$3-6) a cake.

However, prices could actually be higher as the producers have reduced the cake’s weight. A 210-g moon cake with ham, for instance, is sold at VND72,000 each, while consumers had to spend only VND66,000 for a 300-g cake of the same kind last year.

Many price hikes in essentials including rice, pork and cooking gas. Rice prices increased by 10 percent over last week, why grain prices of this year’s summer-autumn crop surged by 54 percent over last year.

The director of a Tien Giang-based rice exporter attributed the price increase to the 15-percent hike in the rice exporting contracts of the domestic rice firms. Meanwhile, prices of pork, beef and poultry meat have also surged by up to 40 percent as of August. The 12-percent increase of feed prices and the 30-percent hike in maintenance cost have sent food prices skyrocket, many producers said.

For their parts, cooking gas suppliers Saigon Petro, Petrolimex Saigon have announced a retail price increase of VND8,000 per cylinder early this week, after two reductions in the last two months. The move was made after global contract price has surged by $25 per ton.

These moon cake makers have offered many kinds of high-class moon cakes, which are priced from dozens to hundreds of US dollars/box. However, it is difficult to know whether the quality of these products is high-class or not.

Producers claim that high-class moon cakes are made from valuable materials of excellent quality, such as shark fin, bird net, abalone, etc. but the quality and the weight of moon cakes are not tightly controlled.

Most kinds of high-class moon cakes are accompanied with foreign wine or sophisticated boxes. It means that the quality of these moon cakes doesn’t depend on the cakes, but the wine or the cake box.

Before the mid-autumn festival 2007, Vu Khac Tuyen in HCM City paid nearly $800 for 36 moon cakes boxes branded Ming Dynasty of Khai Duc Company. Tuyen presented these moon cakes to his clients. However, ten days later, he got feedback that the cakes were moldy. The producer had to compensate Tuyen. Similar cases happened for many kinds of high-class moon cakes of famous brands.

The Food Hygiene Agency under the Health Ministry has launched an inspection of mooncake quality in 18 provinces and cities. However, in each province, inspectors will only test 10-40 samples of moon cakes.

Han Tu Do, Hanoi’s health inspector, said that the expiry date for sticky rice cakes is from 7 to 30 days and up to 2 months for pies. “If moon cakes are not spoiled after that date, consumers should report to competent agencies,” Do said.

Uncertified moon cake filling from China

Chinese traders offer Vietnamese moon cake producers hundreds of samples of stuffing of moon cakes. Moon-cake filling is produced in Pingxiang and transported into Vietnam through the border.

Stuffing is packed in 20kg boxes. The prices vary, depending on the quality. A Chinese trader explained that cheap stuffing is produced by private enterprises, without being certificated for quality. More expensive stuffing is produced by modern machine by big producers and it is tested for quality.

According to this trader, to prepare stuffing of moon cakes for the Vietnamese market, Chinese traders purchased materials from Vietnam many months ago. A large volume of stuffing was produced several months ago.

At this moment, stuffing of moon cakes is priced from 350 to 600 Chinese yuan per 20 kilos ($2.5-4.5/kg), if the goods are delivered at the border market. The price is 30 Chinese yuan more if the goods is delivered in Dong Dang town, in Lang Son province.

It is very simple to purchase stuffing of moon cakes from China. Vietnamese producers only need to contact and pay deposit to an intermediate in Lang Son. Stuffing will be legally or illegally transported into Vietnam by porters.

Vy Cong Tuong, vice chief of the Lang Son Customs Bureau, said that by early August 2011, four Vietnamese enterprises imported over 20 tons of powder and nearly 30 tons of stuffing of moon cakes from China. Some kinds of stuffing has an expiry date of up to six months.

Colonel Luong Minh Thao, vice head of the Police Agency on Environmental Crime Prevention, said that stuffing of moon cakes imported illegally into Vietnam may reach hundreds of tons.

The Hanoi environmental police recently seized two tons of Chinese-made moon cake fillings without clear origins and 50,000 salted duck eggs, another moon cake ingredient, which lacked invoices, labels, or food safety certificates from a house in Thuy Khe Street, Hanoi. The house is the address of a well-known moon cake maker.

PV

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