On the eve of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the head anchor known as “Crazy Little Brother Yang” (Zhang Qingyang) promoted the sale of “Hong Kong High-end Mooncakes (Meicheng Mooncakes)” in his livestream, it was exposed that there were no offline sale points in Hong Kong, and the origin of the product was not from Hong Kong. This news quickly went viral, causing a stir among consumers. Many consumers expressed that they couldn’t send out the Meicheng Mooncakes and were hesitant to eat them.
Recently, “Crazy Little Brother Yang” and his livestream promoting the Hong Kong Meicheng Mooncakes stirred up controversy due to issues with the origin of the product.
Several agents and netizens pointed out that Meicheng Mooncakes have no stores in Hong Kong. Some netizens even shared the origin information of purchased mooncakes, revealing that they mostly came from Guangzhou and Foshan.
According to reports from Mainland Chinese media on September 17th, the sales of Meicheng Mooncakes exceeded 50 million yuan (RMB) in the past 30 days. Many consumers mentioned that they had purchased Meicheng Mooncakes before the negative news broke out. Upon receiving the goods recently, they found that the packaging was decent, but they couldn’t send them as gifts and hesitated to consume them.
As public opinion continued to intensify, various details about the quality of Meicheng Mooncakes were gradually called into question.
Some attentive netizens discovered that Meicheng Mooncakes were previously sold on platforms like Taobao and Pinduoduo for only 59 yuan for three boxes. However, after they were introduced on “Three Sheep,” the pricing was raised to 169 yuan for three boxes.
Furthermore, Big Brother Yang (Zhang Qingyang’s twin brother) once mentioned in a video promoting “Meicheng Mooncakes” that the brand had sold nearly one million orders.
At the Meicheng Mooncakes Tmall flagship store, the mooncake products have been taken off the shelves, with only three types of snack gift boxes remaining. The customer service stated, “The mooncakes are out of stock.” The customer service also mentioned that the Meicheng brand is registered in Hong Kong with a trademark certificate, the brand’s DNA and research and development team are from Hong Kong, but Meicheng has set up marketing centers and production bases in Guangzhou and Foshan.
Many netizens questioned whether the mooncakes were involved in false advertising and mentioned facing rejection when applying for returns. According to the Securities Times, Meicheng Mooncakes were also sold on the @Make Friends Livestream.
During a livestream, Luo Yonghao mentioned, “Recently, the Hong Kong Meicheng Mooncakes that have been exposed, we checked and found that our company did not sell them. However, our smaller satellite livestream rooms seemed to have been affected, they sold some, and now they are nervously reviewing the data. We have dozens of livestream rooms. If you have bought the Meicheng mooncakes from one of the ‘Make Friends’ livestream rooms, after the verification process, there will be a threefold refund in the next day or two.”
The @Make Friends Livestream has released a statement regarding the compensation process for the “Hong Kong Meicheng Mooncakes,” mentioning that the “threefold refund” process is in progress and they will complete the “preliminary compensation” shortly after the holiday, ensuring that the refund amount will be returned to all consumers who bought the mooncakes.
On the evening of September 15th, the Huadu District Market Supervision Bureau in Guangzhou responded, stating that after paying attention to the situation on September 13th, they conducted checks on the involved company, Guangzhou Meicheng Food Co., Ltd. Regarding the issue of “false advertising,” due to the wide scope of the matter and the fact that the involved company and the livestream seller (Hefei Three Sheep Network Technology Co., Ltd.) are in different regions, cross-regional investigation requires coordination among multiple local regulatory authorities.
On September 17th, the Hefei High-tech Zone Market Supervision Administration issued a notice stating that the recent attention on the “Hong Kong Meicheng Mooncakes” sold through the livestream by Three Sheep Network Technology Co., Ltd. is being investigated for suspected actions of “misleading consumers” during the livestream.
Earlier, the official Weibo account of the Hefei High-tech Zone Management Committee reported that “the Market Supervision Administration of the High-tech Zone, in conjunction with relevant departments, has repeatedly summoned and urged companies to operate in compliance.” However, the released report was quickly deleted.
According to a report by the “Daily Economic News,” Meicheng’s registered office is located in Shiling Town, Huadu District, Guangzhou. This area is known as the capital of Chinese leather goods, with numerous factories scattered throughout the town. The company’s factory building on Gegang Road has only a few floors and is surrounded by several auxiliary buildings in a ‘C’ shape, where the signboard of “Hong Kong Meicheng Food” stands at the top.
In response to recent online public opinion, the head of the company’s human resources department displayed the company’s registered trademark in Hong Kong and mentioned that the brand was registered in Hong Kong in 2019. They expressed helplessness in facing the current situation.
Evidently, the Meicheng Mooncakes, bearing the identity of a “Hong Kong brand,” are indeed produced in mainland China.
The aforementioned personnel did not deny this fact; they stated, “Why did we register a company in Hong Kong and then produce in the mainland is being questioned online. I believe there is no law stating that registering a brand in Hong Kong prohibits production in the mainland, right? If there are any concerns regarding this, relevant laws and regulations can be presented.”
Liu Kai, a lawyer specializing in intellectual property and entertainment law at Zhongwen Law Firm (Changsha), mentioned that trademark protection is territorial, and overseas registered trademarks do not automatically have legal effect in the mainland.
Liu Kai explained that products like the Meicheng Mooncakes sold in “Crazy Little Brother Yang’s” livestream may be potentially involved in false advertising and consumer fraud, as they created a misconception among consumers that the products were produced in Hong Kong while the actual origin was Guangzhou or Foshan.