Beijing, China, September 16 (Reporter Zhou Yifan Yu Zhongtao) According to the Voice of China report, today is the second day of the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday. Eating moon cakes is a must-have program for every family in the Mid-Autumn Festival. I wonder where you bought the moon cakes that your family ate this year? Physical store or online platform?
Nowadays, it is nothing new to buy moon cakes online. Many moon cake brands also have flagship stores online. But the novelty of this "buying moon cakes online" we are talking about today is that the seller is not a company that makes moon cakes, but a private person.
This is the so-called "private moon cakes". To put it bluntly, it is the moon cakes sold by individuals through online platforms such as Taobao and WeChat friends circle. These moon cakes are generally made by themselves, without adding, and are purely handmade, which is somewhat similar to those online food delivery platforms that focus on private dishes cooked by their own families.
From this year on, this mooncake has a national standard, and many problems have been exposed in the so-called private cuisine, including lack of qualification, worrying hygiene and so on. Is the quality of "private mooncakes" reliable?
At the end of last year, the new national standard for moon cakes was officially implemented. This recommended standard requires the classification, fat content, sugar content, protein and so on of moon cakes. On the first Mid-Autumn Festival since the implementation of the new national standard for mooncakes, "private mooncakes" came into consumers’ sight. Search for keywords in Taobao, and more than 400 treasures will appear. The one with the highest sales volume shows that the monthly sales of private mooncakes is nearly 2,000 pieces.
The seller declared that "it is handmade without any additives". "Generally, it can be kept for about ten days, because we all have no additives, we all make them ourselves, and we don’t do them with additives."
Similar private moon cakes have also appeared in many people’s circle of friends. Endorsement by acquaintances, coupled with delicious and safe gimmicks, private mooncakes are generally very popular. Last year, Mr. Wang tried to sell homemade fresh meat mooncakes in a circle of friends: "In a circle of friends, because there were too many people who asked me for them last year, I said, OK, let’s start selling them, and then I sold almost 3 or 400, and then I felt that this business was quite easy."
The sales volume is huge and there is room for profit. In order to convince consumers to trust the quality of products, some WeChat sellers will also make videos of their own moon cakes and send them online. Miss Li from Liaoning said, "You can really see them through small videos. This intuitive way makes me believe in this kind of thing."
However, although the video can partially show the production process, consumers can’t judge the ingredients in the raw materials. Some media sent four different homemade moon cakes online for inspection, and two of them detected sodium cyclamate: "Its (sodium cyclamate) is 0.15 g/kg, which means that the two private kitchens can’t be said to be zero-added, because sodium cyclamate has been detected, and everyone will know whether it is zero-added."
In addition, after the production of moon cakes, there may be hidden dangers of food safety due to the limited storage capacity of family workshops. Gwan Chin, director of the Food Circulation Supervision Department of Nanjing Food and Drug Administration, said that it is actually illegal to sell directly to friends in the WeChat circle of friends, and the quality is not guaranteed, especially the storage period of moon cakes, or the storage temperature, which has a certain impact on the quality.
From the packaging point of view, these "private" moon cakes do not indicate the manufacturer, production date, shelf life, food production license number and food label, which also does not comply with the law. An industry insider who once worked in a well-known pastry company in Shanghai said: "Mooncakes sold in China need a qualified food factory to make and process them, and they need to be labeled with all ingredients, as well as the factory and contact information for processing them. Private mooncakes can’t do this because they are all made by themselves."
In July this year, the State Food and Drug Administration issued the Measures for the Investigation and Punishment of Internet Food Safety Violations, which will be implemented on October 1 this year. It stipulates that online food operators should obtain food business licenses or filing vouchers according to law. Those who have not obtained the food business license or filing certificate shall not engage in online food business activities. Liu Deliang, director of the Asia-Pacific Network Law Research Center, said that as long as there is sales behavior, no matter what platform, it should be bound by relevant laws and regulations:
"If you are a good friend, you don’t need food safety and health when you eat at home. The key is that it can target an unspecified third party, and the scope is relatively large. In this case, it is no different from roadside hawking, stall selling and Tmall Taobao. Around food safety, the law has corresponding provisions."
However, because it is a relatively closed sales environment, it is difficult for the regulatory authorities to investigate and deal with these private mooncakes that are sold in the WeChat circle of friends and have a huge sales volume. HanDong, deputy director of the Food Circulation Supervision Department of Hefei Food and Drug Administration, suggested that consumers should still choose qualified manufacturers: "Third-party platforms must provide information about sellers. If consumers have problems, they can first look for third-party platforms. WeChat circle is not a form of online sales of third-party platforms. From a certain point of view, it belongs to private friends who buy in mutual trust. Whether it has production capacity, quality and hygiene is guaranteed, Consumers should also keep their eyes open. We suggest buying moon cakes or going to a qualified physical store. If you buy them online, you should go through a third-party platform, which is also guaranteed. "