Mainland catering companies selling mooncakes falsely claiming to be made in HK
發佈日期: 2025-10-06 23:42
TVB News
TVB News found a number of mainland catering companies have been misleading mooncake costumers by claiming their cakes are "made in Hong Kong".
Those accused responded by stressing the quality of their products adding that they have nothing to hide.
Legal experts told us the companies are operating in a grey area.
On mainland online shopping platforms, a search for Hong Kong mooncakes will show results indicating this particular brand, with close to every promotional video of the company emphasising its products' origin in Hong Kong, and even calling the brand a well-known name in the city.
The mainland company has no retail stores in Hong Kong, with no additional information on its business found online.
To find out more about its alleged Hong Kong mooncakes, TVB News purchased a box of the festive treats.
The package indicated the food product being "Cantonese lava mooncakes", but stressed they were manufactured in Huizhou City in Guangdong rather than Hong Kong.
The packaging also displayed the company's contact number starting with the mainland's country code instead of the SAR's "852" code.
To find out more about the company's practices, TVB News located the catering business's quality control firm at an industrial building in Tuen Mun.
Our reporter visited the site in hopes of contacting its representatives.
But we received no replies despite calling the company during its opening hours.
Upon further digging into documents from the Intellectual Property Department, it was revealed that the company's four trademark registrations were only preliminarily approved around two months ago.
Meanwhile, another catering company claiming to sell Hong Kong-made mooncakes on mainland online shopping platforms was found to have tried and failed to apply for a trademark registration in the city last year.
Our reporter managed to contact the company's self-proclaimed quality control firm in Kwai Chung, which noted the company only sought their help to register for a shell corporation in the city.
This as an intellectual property lawyer based in Beijing emphasised while the companies employed deceptive tactics to trick consumers into believing their mooncakes' Hong Kong origins, their promotional wording constitute a legal gray area.
