MOONCAKE SEASON

It's the mid-Autumn festival in Chinese-dominated Asia and Chuseok in Korea. So, happy holidays to all who are celebrating.

I generally don't have a taste for traditional mooncakes. However, in recent years the selection has expanded and become more palatable for an Ang Moh like myself.

Mooncake sellers are over the moon this year, with consumers biting into new - and in some cases, unusual - flavours they have put out to beat the competition.
New flavours include Starbucks' expresso roast and Vanish "Indian" mooncakes.

Hotels and other outlets gunning for a bigger slice of the pie no longer offer just the traditional confection with lotus seed paste, but also unbaked ones with exotic fillings such as kiwi fruit, custard and peanut butter.

Personally, I'm most tempted by the Haagen Daz' ice cream mooncake - which isn't mentioned in the article.

The report also notes that there has been a sharp increase in sales:

The wide choice and aggressive marketing have resulted in many shops reporting record sales.
Goodwood Park Hotel, best known for its durian mooncakes, expects to rake in $1.5 million through sales of 75,000 boxes - up from $1.4 million last year - while The Regent Hotel has already sold 60 per cent more than the year before as of early last week.
Others like Marriott Hotel and the Tung Lok restaurant chain also reported good business.
This contrasts with the situation just a few years ago, when many vendors complained of a slump in sales and lamented the passing of a tradition of giving and eating mooncakes.
Now, hotels, high-end restaurants and bakeries are leading the charge with 'gourmet' mooncakes - richer, more unusual versions of the traditional confection.
'In the past, only the shops in Chinatown and downtown sold mooncakes,' said Dr Neo Peng Fu, a Chinese studies academic with the National University of Singapore.
Even American coffee chain Starbucks has entered the market, and this has helped revive an interest in mooncakes among the young and trendy - thanks, no doubt, to the 'hip' expresso roast and green tea versions.

The rise in sales was probably due as much to the economic recovery as it was to aggressive marketing. Two years ago, Singapore was in a recession. This year economic growth is expected to hit about 8%.

That leaves plenty of room for a bank or brokerage to develop a cheap, publicity-yielding, index based upon regional mooncake sales, taking samples from the main markets in Greater China and Singapore.

Such a report wouldn't necessarily be that inaccurate, it's natural that sales would be in line with growth and growth expectations. And it would be a great way to drum up publicity – as has been done quite successfully with the Economist's Big Mac index and CLSA's Feng Shui index.

There would also be lots of room for artful pie charts. Everyone loves pie charts.