The Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, traditionally a time to celebrate the harvest moon, is not complete without mooncakes.
Dense, round pastries filled with sweet or savory paste, these cakes are often given as gifts during the holiday.
Over the years, mooncake manufacturers have been getting creative with their offerings, whether it’s decking out their packaging with elaborate designs or coming up with unique flavors.
The latest company to jump on the mooncake bandwagon is KFC, which has been selling a mooncake made with spicy chicken floss and nuts.
Although savory mooncakes are not new—a variety from Suzhou is made with ground meat—KFC has stepped it up with the inclusion of chicken floss and the marketing pitch.
The mooncakes are stuffed with nuts, sunflower seeds, peaches, and spicy chicken floss.
To top it off, they come in a “mooncake bucket,” similar to a chicken bucket, with LED lights that glow in the dark and an image of Colonel Sanders in an astronaut suit (no relation, we’re told, to the 50th anniversary of the moon landing).
There’s also a dessert mooncake made with a runny salted egg yolk custard.
This isn’t the first time KFC has released a localized product just for the Chinese market. The American fast-food chain is famous for coming up with creative offerings for specific markets, whether it’s durian-filled chicken nuggets or zongzi, another celebratory dish associated with the Dragon Boat Festival.
Meanwhile, other global franchises have also released their own mooncakes for Mid-Autumn Festival.
Starbucks in Hong Kong has a mocha mooncake made with coffee-flavored mochi and a black tea Earl Grey mooncake.