Members of the People's Armed Police firefighting unit stationed in Yuhuan county, Zhejiang province, send e-mooncakes to their families and friends on Tuesday to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival. [Jiang Yongbing / for China Daily]

Traditional treat goes green as ornate wrapping reduced

BEIJING - For centuries, it was the quintessential symbol of China's Mid-Autumn Festival, but in recent years it has become a calling card of waste, extravagance and obsequiousness.

But this year - thanks to new packaging rules - the mooncake is returning to a more modest tradition and going green.

Stories of extravagance were easy to come by with mooncakes reportedly placed in gilded or jewelry-encrusted boxes, coupled with brand-name watches, wines, and even gold Buddha statuettes as luxury gifts for bosses, officials, and friends. And the price of a box could be as high as 10,000 yuan ($1,490).

However, under regulations introduced in April by China's Standardization Administration, no more than three layers of food packaging are allowed and it must not exceed 12 percent of the sale price.

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The regulations appear to have exerted a major influence on the mooncake market, which peaks on Wednesday when the festival falls.

No reports of exorbitantly priced, over-packaged mooncakes had appeared in China's major cities in the run-up to the festival.

Supermarket shelves displayed "slimmer" mooncakes, shorn of excessive packaging and ornate decorations.

"Mooncakes have less wrapping compared to last year and more are in recyclable paper boxes rather than metal ones," said a Wal-Mart salesperson in Beijing.

The tie-in luxuries and sky-high price tags are also absent. In a Beijing Carrefour supermarket, a well-designed box of six to 10 mooncakes rarely exceeded 500 yuan.

Many supermarkets witnessed the appeal of mooncake stands selling a cheaper, simpler packaged version.