Mid Autumn Festival is still a few weeks away, but hotels and restaurants have already begun to promote their mooncakes.

This year, the National Development and Reform Commission, along with other three concerned departments, has published a bulletin requiring all mooncakes not to be packaged in luxury boxes because that will only help sellers mark up the prices. Instead, sellers are encouraged to put moon cakes in simple boxes made of innocuous materials that is easy to be recycled. Wooden boxes are strictly forbidden in the circular.

Moon cakes have had bad publicity in recent years as many manufacturers were found to have put materials like sawdust and hair as filler ingredients. Thus, many Chinese consumers have turned wary of purchasing mooncakes.

In Beijing, most 5-star hotels limit their moon cake prices to below RMB600.