Food and drink sellers gain holiday windfall

A farmer shows off his different-colored pomelos growing from out of the same tree. Pomelos, along with moon cakes, liquor and barbecued meat, are a traditional treat for the Mid-Autumn Festival. PHOTO: LIU WAN-CHUN, TAIPEI TIMES

The Mid-Autumn Festival is just around the corner, but confectioners and spirits retailers are seeing a strong upturn in sales, with major moon-cake makers saying they're out of stock.

Industry professionals said that consumers are more confident in spending this year. "The market demand is skyrocketing? we almost sold out all the moon cakes in stock over the weekend," said Kent Chen (陳志偉), a section chief at Isabelle Taiwan Co (伊莎貝爾食品), which specializes in producing moon cakes and wedding cookies.

Since the amount of ingredients, such as pastes and stuffing, had already been ordered in advance -- in line with the company's original sales projections -- Chen said the company is finding it hard to produce more moon cakes.

Sales of moon cakes at Isabelle Taiwan is expected to grow by 10 percent this year over the previous year to more than NT$200 million, with approximately 60 percent of that figure coming from corporate orders, Chen said.

Traditional food company Hsin Tungyang Co (新東陽食品) also has corporations as its prime customers this year and says that many companies are willing to give out more expensive gift packages to employees and clients.

"Corporations are more generous this year, as the economy is showing signs of recovery," said Robert Lin (林軒臣), a Hsin Tungyang marketing executive.

"So far, we have seen a 30 percent sales growth in [moon cake] packages delivered to corporations," he said.

The situation matches a recent report showing that Taiwanese are becoming more optimistic about the nation's economic outlook.

According to the consumer confidence index released by the Taiwan Research Institute (台綜院) last week, the confidence index was at 79.07 for last month, up from 77.9 in July and 73.68 in the same period last year.

The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, is one of the three main holidays in the traditional Chinese calendar. It is celebrated on the first full moon of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, which this year falls on Thursday.

The moon is always at its fullest and brightest on that night and this phenomenon is symbolized in the holiday's main treats -- the moon-shaped moon cakes.

Apart from moon cakes, Taiwanese traditionally also visit family and friends during the festival bearing liquor gift-sets.

The tradition makes the Mid-Autumn Festival season a peak period for sales of premium liquor, a local alcohol distributor said.

"We are expected to have more than 10 percent sales growth [this year]," said Crystin Chiang (江敏惠), general manager of Drink, Wine & Spirits Ltd (橡木桶).

"Compared with the non-holiday time, we have seen sales of our Brandy XO gift sets triple."

The festival accounts for more than 30 percent of the company's annual sales, which amounted to NT$2 billion last year, according to Chiang.

But people are not buying just moon cakes and liquor. At this time of year, hypermarts and supermarkets are flooded with people planning to barbecue under the full moon.

"One of our stores in Tainan reported nearly NT$1 million in sales from grill-ready shish kebabs over the weekend," said Sarah Wu (吳明君), a public relations official of Tesco Stores (Taiwan) Co.