Wing Wah to sell mooncakes under two names to head off copycats
Mooncake maker Wing Wah will sell its festive products under a different name to mainland distributors this year in an effort to combat "unscrupulous competitors" who is accused of costing it more than HK$10 million a year in the past 15 years.
It plans to produce cakes under two names - the traditional Wing Wah and Yuen Long Wing Wah - selling both through its own shops on the mainland but selling only the latter to distributors.
In this way it hopes buyers won't be misled into believing products from a mainland company that has registered the Wing Wah name and sells cakes in similar packaging are the real thing.
"Unscrupulous competitors have been copying our packaging in the past years," Wing Wah co-founder Lau Pui-ling said. "This year, we will produce the two brands so that consumers can better distinguish our products."
The move comes as a long legal battle with Guangdong businessman Su Guorong over the brand name drags on.
Wing Wah first produced mooncakes in Yuen Long in 1950. It entered the mainland market in the early 1980s but did not apply for a trademark. Su registered the trademark "Wing Wah" in encircled simplified characters in 1997.
"We think that it has cost us at least HK$10 million a year. We had less sales and had to spend money on the lawsuits," Wing Wah lawyer Wen Xu said. "People may question why our quality has dropped after eating the counterfeit mooncakes, so we have to make clarifications in newspapers."
