With a large and long-standing Asian population, Australia’s Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations have grown stronger year on year, which for many means tracking down mooncakes in local family-run grocers and other speciality shops, Xinhua reports.
This year, Sydney residents Mr Cheng and his wife, were surprised to find mooncakes on the shelves of one of the biggest supermarket chains in Australia, Coles.
“This is the first time we saw mooncakes in Coles,” they told Xinhua. They also found the price competitive. “It is cheaper.”
A spokesperson from Coles told Xinhua that the supermarket chain introduced mooncakes in a small-scale trial, as part of their effort to better represent the multicultural communities they occupy.
“We celebrate many different holidays and religious festivals at Coles such as Christmas, Hanukkah, Australia Day, Orthodox Easter, Diwali and Ramadan as we always aim to represent the communities we serve,” the spokesperson said.
“This year, for the first time, Coles has introduced mooncakes in a small number of stores as part of the Mid-Autumn Festival.”
For those living in Melbourne, the city at the centre of a second wave of COVID-19 infections, the convenience of buying mooncakes from a mainstream supermarket makes it possible to purchase them while abiding by lockdown rules.
Despite the pandemic, local small businesses who make their own mooncakes on site found that demand remains high.
Jim’s Malaysia, a restaurant in Sydney said on their social media page that they were not able to accept orders anymore due to surging demand.
“Orders have been coming in thick and fast and we’re trying our best to keep up,” another restaurant owner Billy Wong said.
“We’ve also started selling them in four-packs with more modest packaging for people to eat at home rather than a gift.”
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Feature: Mooncake culture gains more exposure in Australia as major supermarket chain steps in (Xinhua)
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