Feeding Hong Kong: Mooncake Madness 2024

Each year, the month of September brings forth the celebration of a day that has been embedded in Chinese culture for over a millennium: The Mid Autumn festival. Historically, being held time around the end of the autumn harvest, this festival celebrates the successful reaping of crops often with food offerings devoted to thanking the Gods. The festival is not only a representation of harmony and unity, but an eminent symbol of gratitude. 

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Unfortunately, modern practices of the festival have fallen out of line with these values. It mainly boils down to one key component- Mooncakes. The beloved traditional snack is a long time convention of the Mid Autumn festival. Yet, for a tradition so dedicated to encouraging thankfulness, these mooncakes are a consistent contributor to waste. Each year in Hong Kong over two million excess mooncakes are thoughtlessly thrown out, all the while around a 1/3rd of Hong Kong’s population grapples with food insecurity. It is estimated that over 3.2 million pieces of mooncake were wasted last year- further exacerbating the city’s ongoing battle with municipal solid waste- a whopping 4.17 million tonnes of which get pumped into our landfills each year. Hong Kongers throw away an estimated average of 71 kg of household food waste per person every year. According to Feeding Hong Kong, over 1.4 million people live below the poverty line. These are people who fight to afford the bare necessities, let alone festive luxuries like mooncakes. To these people tossing away any kind of perfectly edible food is unfathomable. 

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Supermarkets, many of which distribute these mooncakes, dispose of 29 tonnes of edible food every single day. That amount could readily feed over 48,000 three-person households each day. And yet, they end up finding their way into one of HK’s three landfills. The space of which is the same as 379 football fields. This brings us to a second issue- mooncake waste isn’t only a matter of food waste. The plastic packaging that gets tossed along with the mooncake presents a serious environmental threat, along with these landfills that cause habitat loss and production of greenhouse gases such as methane that rapidly deteriorate Earth’s climate. 
 
Luckily, there is still a way to help deter this cycle to more positive outcomes. 

“Feeding Hong Kong is a registered charity organization whose mission is to collect surplus food from companies and redistribute it to local charities. In awareness of mooncake wastage, we have set up community collection points all across the city to share with frontline charities, on or before the Mid-Autumn Festival. We are taking donations until Friday, the 13th of September. We collect all mooncakes that are non-perishable and can be stored at room temperature, they also have to be In the original, unopened packaging, with a clearly stated best before or use by date and manufacturer. We hope our recipients are able to experience Mid Autumn Festival just like any other person, and these mooncakes are certainly a huge part of the amazing celebration.” 

 

As the festival approaches, the world is more in need of compassion than ever. Not everybody can afford to get the food they need. But everybody can afford to help those in need. Together, you can help spread the true spirit of giving and kindness at this years’ Mid Autumn Festival, one mooncake at a time. 

VISIT THE FEEDING HONG KONG WEBSITE