The once favoured moon cake, a traditional Chinese food popular during celebrations of the Mid-Autumn Festival, will face bleak sales this year because of a scandal surrounding a namebrand moon cake.

It was recently discovered that Nanjing Guanshengyuan Food Company was making moon cakes with filling that was four years old and also reused filling from uneaten moon cakes.

This disturbing news has frightened away customers who would usually buy moon cakes and has resulted in many loyal customers turning away from brands such as "Guanshengyuan," which have a long history of producing the cake.

Liu Quan, a middle-aged man who eats moon cake every year, said he will not buy them anymore because of this scandal.

"I won't be buying them as presents anymore either, as people might think that I have given them something bad," he said.

Chai Zukang, general manager of Shanghai Guanshengyuan Group, said he expected his company to suffer huge losses because of the scandal surrounding his counterpart in Nanjing.

"My company has been forced to quit five cities because no one will buy my products there, including Shijiazhuang, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Fuzhou and Zibo. Now it seems the market in Beijing will also be lost," Chai said.

He predicted the sales income of his company will plummet by 70 to 80 per cent this year.

More than 20 other companies around the country using the name of Guanshengyuan have been severely hurt by the scandal.

Sales have dropped quickly, and some stores have even refused to sell moon cakes that have the Guanshengyuan name.

Zhu Nianlin, chairman of the China Baked Food Association, said the disgusting behaviour of Nanjing Guanshengyuan had a negative impact on the entire moon cake market.

According to the association's forecast, the sales of moon cakes for this year will probably decrease by 40 per cent, or 16 billion yuan (US$ 1.93 billion) to 20 billion yuan (US$2.4 billion).

"Moon cakes sell quickly around the time of the festival, and this one scandal has ruined a company's whole year's earnings." he said.

This year's Mid-Autumn Festival begins on October 1, also the country's National Day, which would usually be a big day for moon cake producers.

Many old-branded moon cake suppliers have begun to lower the price on moon cakes in a bid to tempt more customers to buy them.

Beijing's Daoxiangcun and Fengzeyuan have placed a 10-20 per cent discount on their products.

After the scandal was brought to light, the State General Administration for Quality Supervision and Inspection and Quarantine launched a national inspection into the quality of moon cakes.

An official from the administration said 96 per cent of the moon cakes inspected were fine to eat - the best figure since the last administration inspection in 1999.

"The current slow sales of moon cake is a result of battered consumers confidence in an old brand," he said.

The tragedy results from historical factors relating to the use of the old brand name, said Li Fei, professor from Beijing Commercial Administrative College.

The brand name Guanshengyuan, established in 1918, was registered in a number of localities by various companies.

"Some of them pay no attention to fostering the reputation of the brand name," Li said.

The same fate was shared by many of China's old brands.

Li suggests that a system should be worked out to protect the venerable old brand names.

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