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sales have collectively cooled this year, and many mooncake companies have reported a decrease in orders for mooncake gift boxes. with heavy inventory pressure, many consumers are wondering where the unsold mooncakes go after the mid-autumn festival. according to beijing business daily, some mooncake manufacturers will sell off their inventory at a discount after the mid-autumn festival in order to clear inventory. expired mooncakes will be recycled by the company and processed into feed. it is worth noting that with the industry's increased awareness of controlling inventory and avoiding waste in recent years, many mooncake manufacturers have adopted methods such as production based on sales and controlling production capacity to reduce mooncake inventory.

90% off sale

before the mid-autumn festival, supermarkets were filled with various mooncake gift boxes, but after the mid-autumn festival, the colorful mooncake gift boxes disappeared overnight. on september 19, a beijing business daily reporter visited and saw that mooncake gift boxes had been removed from some offline supermarkets in beijing.

as for where the unsold mooncakes went, an employee of duodian supermarket in daxing district, beijing, told beijing business daily, "no one buys them after the mid-autumn festival. now there are only some loose mooncakes in the store, which are ordinary loose mooncakes sold on a daily basis. the mooncake gift boxes have all been emptied, and the unsold gift boxes are directly recycled by the manufacturer."

mooncakes are special products with seasonal sales characteristics. after the mid-autumn festival, the demand for mooncakes drops off a cliff. manufacturers are already experienced in how to deal with the problem of out-of-season mooncake inventory.

the head of a mooncake company in tangshan said that on the afternoon of the mid-autumn festival, the mooncakes on sale in supermarkets began to be sold at a loss of 10% to 20% off. there are usually several ways to deal with the unsold gift box mooncakes: keep the box packaging and sell the mooncakes inside at a promotion; the remaining mooncakes in the factory are either sold at a low price or given away for free to nursing homes, employee canteens, etc. to avoid food waste. for the remaining mooncake packaging, intact packaging boxes can continue to be used in the second year, but this depends on the specific situation of the manufacturer. if a new version is replaced at that time, the old box will be sold as waste.

"selling mooncakes at a 10% discount will of course result in a loss, but not disposing of the remaining goods will be an even bigger loss. no one will buy them after the holidays, so they must be disposed of," said the above-mentioned person in charge.

production based on sales

for consumers, what to do with the mooncakes that are left over during the mid-autumn festival has become a headache. for mooncake manufacturers, the backlog of mooncake inventory after the festival is even more of a problem.

beijing business daily reporter learned that many mooncake manufacturers will send expired mooncakes to processing plants to produce feed, etc. on the 1688 platform, many feed companies are advertising "recycling all kinds of expired food, biscuits, mooncakes, etc." a biological feed company in foshan city introduced that the company will convert expired mooncakes, expired noodles and other waste foods into animal feed grains through microbial fermentation and other means. the fermented waste products are used as feed raw materials for feed factories and farms, which can consume a large amount of waste raw materials from food factories, which is both safe and environmentally friendly.

experts say that selling leftover mooncakes to feed factories and farmers is indeed a common way for mooncake companies to deal with them. but on the other hand, there are also some unscrupulous manufacturers who take out the fillings of old mooncakes and resell them the following year. this is what the industry calls the "old filling" problem.

"the cost of a mooncake crust itself is no more than three or four yuan, but the filling inside is valuable. therefore, some companies will take out the filling separately and put it in a cold storage, and then take it out and resell it the following year." chinese food industry analyst zhu danpeng told beijing business daily that this requires the industry to deal with the problem of leftover mooncakes in a more professional and standardized manner.

beijing business daily reporters learned that as the industry's awareness of controlling inventory and avoiding waste has increased in recent years, the mooncake industry has paid more and more attention to food safety and reducing inventory. many companies have begun to adopt methods such as production based on sales and controlling production capacity to strictly control inventory in advance.

in order to avoid inventory problems, some mooncake manufacturers will choose to control production in advance to ensure that they are sold out before the festival. the person in charge of a mooncake company in guangzhou said that some mooncakes were sold out before the mid-autumn festival. although there are still customers who want to buy them, the company will not make mooncakes after they are sold out before the festival. "after the mid-autumn festival, we will no longer make mooncakes this year. at present, we only make daily baked cakes and other foods." the above person in charge said.

zhan junhao, a well-known strategic positioning expert and founder of fujian huace brand positioning consulting, said that after the mid-autumn festival, facing the unsold mooncakes, manufacturers usually adopt a variety of strategies to deal with the inventory. for example, price reduction promotions, bundling sales or giveaways to clear the inventory as soon as possible; on the other hand, manufacturers will also consider remaking the mooncakes and transforming them into new foods to reduce waste.

zhan junhao suggested that in order to deal with the problem of inventory waste, mooncake manufacturers can start from the source, such as adjusting production plans according to market demand forecasts to avoid overproduction; developing products with more flavors and packaging specifications to meet the needs of different consumers. in addition, strengthening communication and collaboration with retailers and sharing information will also help to more accurately grasp market trends and effectively control inventory levels.

beijing business daily reporter zhang han