With the Mid-Autumn Festival around the corner, residents mull purchasing cakes, though suspicions concerning quality are running high

A food shop on Nanjing Donglu Pedestrian Mall sells about 10,000 yuan ($12,500) worth of mooncakes on an average weekday, apparently not unduly affected by the surging suspicions about mooncake quality in the wake of a scandal.

MOONcakes are back. Xiao Zhang will have to eat many pieces of mooncake for breakfast and even dinner.

The cakes, mostly gifts from friends of his parents, have become his main course meals over the last few weeks.

Although Shanghainese like sweet food, mooncakes seem to have lost their charm.

"It's too sweet and the fillings have been the same for many years," said a taxi-driver of Dazhong Company. "I never eat them but send them to friends and relatives."

Maybe mooncake producers have heard those consumer complaints and racked their brains to create a greater variety.

Shark's fin, edible bird's nest and ice-cream have been put into the fillings for mooncakes, a novel idea but not cheap. Even Starbucks has joined the competition, selling coffee mooncakes.

Shark's fin mooncakes are priced at about 1,200 yuan ($145) per box, equal to the monthly wage of an ordinary worker in the city.

"It's too expensive. Every year I bought a box for about 60 yuan ($7.3) if my child wanted to eat some," the taxi driver said.

However, the high-priced cakes became a hit in the market and were soon sold out.

Shanghai Xinghualou (Group) Company, which produces about half of the mooncakes sold locally every year, sold 500 boxes of classic mooncakes. They were made by the unique mooncake plan approved by China's government to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the company.

At 1,288 yuan ($156) per box, they were sold within days. The fillings included abalone, shark's fin and pearl powder.

Shanghai JC Mandarin sold more than 200 boxes of precious fillings in the past month.

The shark's fin was first stewed for hours in sugar water. After it dried, chefs mixed in some ham slices, various nuts and preserved fruits.

"It's totally a new creation and the prime cost of one piece is about 60 yuan ($7.2)," said Feng Mingzhang, executive chef of the hotel, who is originally from Hong Kong. He said that he never seen such mooncakes in Hong Kong and they are unique to Shanghai.

In the opinion of a nutrition professor from the Shanghai Second Medical University, Cai Meiqin, mooncakes are not healthy.

"Mooncakes contain large amounts of sugar and fat. The new fillings of precious ingredients are only a selling point and I doubt how much shark's fin or bird's nest they contain," Cai said.

Nevertheless, Shanghai residents rush to shops to buy boxes of mooncakes as gifts.

Scalpers can be seen standing outside supermarkets and department stores to buy and sell mooncake coupons at discounted prices.

Mooncakes from Xinghualou are not easy to buy, so shoppers should purchase coupons several weeks ahead in order to guarantee having mooncakes in time for the festival.

"Our sales turnover has surpassed 200 million yuan ($24 million) this year," said Yao Jiankang, an official of the Xinghualou Company.

While Xinghualou was glad to see its sales rising annually, its counterpart - Shanghai Guanshengyuan (Group) Company - stopped production of mooncakes on September 14, due to the scandal at Nanjing Guanshengyuan over its use of inferior and outdated mooncake fillings.

As a result, sales are expected to slump 50 per cent compared with the same period last year.

Although the two companies sell the same brand, they have separate operations. The State Bureau of Quality and Quarantine said that products made by the Shanghai company were of high quality, but consumers in Fuzhou, Wuhan, Shijiazhuang, Shandong and Beijing still cancelled their orders.

In the 1980s, Guanshengyuan, an older brand, authorized about 10 enterprises in various cities throughout the country to use the brand.

Problems arising from the use of leftover fillings have troubled consumers over the last few years.

"Actually, we produced according to the orders, and few were left every year. Even so, we would give them to our employees as festival gifts," said Chai Zukang, an official with the Shanghai Guanshengyuan. The company resumed production on September 17.