The approaching Mid-Autumn Festival is ushering in the peak season for moon cake sales. In addition to the traditional moon cake enterprises, in recent years more and more catering companies, such as KFC and tea brands such as Heytea, have launched their own moon cake gift boxes.

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Nayuki, a leading new-style tea brand based in China, has launched moon cakes with Chinese characteristics in collaboration with the Palace Museum. The introduction page of the purchase link reads "draw inspiration from the collection of cultural relics, calligraphy and paintings in the Palace Museum".

KFC has also set foot in the field of moon cakes for the first time this year, launching the "Flowers and Moon," moon cake gift boxes in joint efforts with the Palace Museum.

Pizza Hut and the Dunhuang Museum, in northwestern China's Gansu province, together introduced the moon cake gift boxes, which includes two kinds of Dunhuang-culture moon cakes with limited quantity.

As for the reason behind why catering, tea and snack brands have stepped into the field of moon cakes, Gao Zhenzhen, the person responsible for a marketing official account, revealed that now as the supply chain’s support of food is getting better and better, it is very easy for brands to find moon cake manufacturers for cooperation and OEM.

"Therefore, the implementation and operating cost of moon cakes produced by catering merchants are not high," Gao said, adding that businesses want to take advantage of popular holidays, like the Mid-Autumn Festival, to produce and market products in order to attract attention from audiences across the country.

"When you make moon cakes using your own brands, you get a name and a profit," he shared, adding "this is equivalent to a stunt where brands can draw due attention for themselves."

Various brands choose to launch moon cakes in the form of joint names. "Co-naming is a process of mutual empowerment, the combination of the strong and the strong, the creation of communication content with mutual benefits," said Gao.