In the autumn of October, it is the season of hairy crabs on the market, and the hairy crabs of Yangcheng Lake have once again become popular for consumption. Recently, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily found that many hairy crabs on the market that claim to come from "Yangcheng Lake" are actually not produced in Yangcheng Lake. Some companies and consumers even play word games - using "Yangcheng Lake" as a registered trademark, thus labeling "Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crab" on the packaging; or breeding from other places and shipping from Yangcheng Lake Town, so that consumers mistakenly think that it is Yangcheng Lake hairy crab.
Industry insiders said that when it comes to hairy crabs, everyone knows that Yangcheng Lake hairy crabs are the best, so the market demand for this is very strong, but the annual production of hairy crabs in Yangcheng Lake is limited, coupled with the difficulty of tracing the origin of hairy crabs, some merchants in order to make profits, do not hesitate to "hang sheep's head to sell dog meat", which actually infringes on the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.
The origin of "Hairy Crab in Yangcheng Lake" is a mystery
"There are crabs sold in the market, but there is basically no Yangcheng Lake." A farmer with many years of experience in hairy crab farming joked.
In the Shenghua Honglin Aquatic Products Market in Wangsiying Town, Chaoyang District, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily found that most of the crabs on the hairy crab stalls came from Xinghua City, Jiangsu Province. Stall owners said that hairy crabs in Yangcheng Lake need to be booked in advance from the place of origin, and they are rarely sold in Beijing's aquatic market.
Although the aquatic market stalls sell Jiangsu Xinghua hairy crabs, the stall owners can provide packaging gift boxes printed with the words "Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crabs", and customers can pack them in the "Yangcheng Lake" gift box after purchasing The Xinghua Hairy Crabs. "Those hotels came to buy like this, and I don't know if I went back to sell ordinary crabs or Yangcheng Lake." If there is a demand, the Yangcheng Lake packaging box can also be bought separately. A hairy crab stall owner told the Beijing Business Daily reporter.
Online, this kind of hairy crab packaged by "Yangcheng Lake" is also common. On the Taobao platform, the Beijing Business Daily reporter found a trademark named "Yangcheng Lake Brand" hairy crab merchants, in the flagship store, its products are divided into origin gift boxes, whole mother crab gift boxes, organic gift boxes, etc., in addition to the origin of the gift box of the product information will indicate the place of origin as "Yangcheng Lake", some of the organic hairy crabs and other products in the store are "other", the certificates listed in the product introduction are also organic products related, water quality related certificates, not marked as Yangcheng Lake origin.
According to the China Trademark Network of the Trademark Office of the State Intellectual Property Office, Suzhou Xiangcheng District Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crab Group Company has registered trademarks such as "Yangcheng Lake" and "Yangcheng Lake Brand", which are internationally classified into 31 categories, and the exclusive right period is from March 7, 2015 to March 6, 2025. On July 13, 2020, Suzhou Xiangcheng District Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crab Group Company transferred the above trademark to Yangcheng Lake Modern Agricultural Development Co., Ltd.
With the word "Yangcheng Lake Brand" in the trade name, many consumers confuse it as Yangcheng Lake hairy crab. Some consumers wrote in the product evaluation: "It looks like it should be the hairy crab of Yangcheng Lake." ”
In addition, some of the products on the Taobao platform with "Yangcheng Lake" in their names for drainage are marked in the details as "Yangcheng Lake Town Delivery" and "Non-Yangcheng Lake Brand and Yangcheng Lake Waters". According to industry insiders, the hairy crab in Yangcheng Lake Town is not equal to the hairy crab in Yangcheng Lake. "The hairy crab in Yangcheng Lake is a lake crab, and the hairy crab in Yangcheng Lake Town is a pond crab, and because the lake crab has higher environmental requirements than the pond crab, it is also more expensive." Industry insiders said.
Ms. Liu, a consumer, said: "At first glance, I really thought it was Yangcheng Lake, but if you look closely, it was originally shipped from Yangcheng Lake Town, but it is really difficult to say where the hairy crab is." And we generally can't eat it. ”
Lawyer: It is a consumer fraud
In response to the question of whether the Yangcheng Lake brand hairy crab is illegal, the Beijing Business Daily reporter contacted and interviewed the company belonging to its brand - Suzhou Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crab Marketing Co., Ltd., but as of press time, the other party did not reply.
Chang Jingyu, head of the trademark department of Beijing Guolin Trade Intellectual Property Agency Co., Ltd., said in an interview with the Beijing Business Daily reporter that if the registered trademark is "Yangcheng Lake", the hairy crabs sold by it are not produced by Yangcheng Lake, which is a fraudulent consumer behavior. "This is equivalent to selling bags in LV stores, which are actually high imitations." He gave an example.
Article 10, Paragraph 1, Item (7) of the Trademark Law states that it is deceptive and is likely to cause the public to misunderstand the quality or other characteristics of the goods or the place of origin, and shall not be used as a trademark. Geographical names of administrative divisions at or above the county level or foreign geographical names known to the public shall not be used as trademarks. However, except where a geographical name has other meanings or is part of a collective or certification mark, a registered mark using a geographical name continues to be valid.
Shen Meng, director of Chanson Capital, believes that there is a cognitive difference between trademarks and goods, and merchants use consumer habits to create unequal expectations in disguise, which is a word game played by merchants to consumers. The domestic hairy crab market is very chaotic, many merchants use trademarks and even illegal transactions of hairy crab logos, etc., to seek improper benefits, although the government departments have introduced some management measures, but also failed to completely plug the loopholes in the circulation market, not so much powerless, but rather driven by interests and choose to coexist with fake goods.
In fact, the supply of hairy crabs in Yangcheng Lake is in short supply every year, and the annual sales volume is much higher than its production. "Yangcheng Lake covers an area of 190,000 mu, each mu generally produces about 200 catties, about 3 crabs per kilogram, crabs can not survive below 3 meters, you say how many crabs can Yangcheng Lake produce in a year?" The above-mentioned hairy crab farmer told the Beijing Business Daily reporter.
Suzhou Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crab Industry Association public data show that in 2020, the annual output of hairy crabs in Yangcheng Lake is about 10260 tons, of which 1500 tons are produced in the purse seine breeding area, and the rest is 8760 tons of high-standard pond culture around the lake. According to the statistics of sales data from relevant reports, the annual sales volume of "Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crab" sold through various channels in 2020 has reached nearly 800,000 tons. From this point of view, the authentic Yangcheng Lake hairy crab only accounts for about 1.3% of the actual sales volume.
According to the announcement of suzhou Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crab Industry Association, since 2002, Yangcheng Lake has carried out three rounds of purse seine culture compression, and by 2016, purse seine culture has been compressed to 16,000 mu today. There are only 521 Yangcheng Lake hairy crab sellers registered in the Suzhou Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crab Industry Association, while on the Tianyan check, a search for "Yangcheng Lake Crab" can find 6387 enterprises, and there are 2470 Taobao "Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crab" related stores.
Zhu Danpeng said that yangcheng lake hairy crabs rely on well-known brands and high profits, dominating the crab market, so it will attract low-quality and high-price chaos. These phenomena are already fraudulent from a legal point of view, and with the development of the market, all kinds of chaos will be further aggravated.
"With the continuous improvement of the consumption capacity of Chinese residents and the popularization of cold chain logistics, the trend of nationalization of the hairy crab market is gradually obvious, and there are many market chaos, such as 'hanging sheep's head to sell dog meat', some crabs that are not produced in Yangcheng Lake, hanging on the relevant trademarks of Yangcheng Lake, or going to Yangcheng Lake to 'walk' a circle, from Yangcheng Lake Town, also called Yangcheng Lake hairy crab." This phenomenon is an act of deceiving consumers and violating laws and regulations. Chinese food industry analyst Zhu Danpeng said.
There are crab buckles that may not be true Yang Cheng Lake hairy crabs
In order to prevent counterfeiting and trace the source, Suzhou Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crab Industry Association launched a hairy crab "identity code" for Yangcheng Lake hairy crabs, each hairy crab wears a "ring" - crab buckle, the 2021 version of the red crab buckle represents the Yangcheng Lake Area purse seine culture, the blue crab buckle represents the Yangcheng Lake along the lake high standard transformation pond culture, scan the two-dimensional code on the crab buckle can check the source of the hairy crab origin, operating company, farmers and other information.
Mr. Yang, the person in charge of a Xiangyang Yangcheng Lake hairy crab shop located in Beijing's Chaoyang District, told the Beijing Business Daily reporter that the Suzhou Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crab Industry Association will issue a certain number of anti-counterfeiting crab buckles to the registered Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crab Operating Company, which will be worn by the store itself, and each crab buckle has a separate number as the "identity certificate" of the Yangcheng Lake hairy crab.
However, can having a crab buckle ensure that the hairy crab comes to the road authentically? An investigation by a reporter from Beijing Business Daily found that although some merchants also put on crab buckles for their products, they were printed by the merchants themselves. For example, after the crab buckle of the hairy crab in the crab line is scanned, the page that appears is the brand product information of the crab line, which is not the same as the traceability page of the Suzhou Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crab Industry Association.
In addition, some platforms on the Internet have begun to sell counterfeit crab buckles, which can be customized and printed yangcheng Lake version of crab buckles. The industry generally believes that this not only makes the source of the identity of the hairy crab in Yangcheng Lake a mystery, but also the authenticity of the "ID card".
In response to the above-mentioned problems such as the authenticity of crab buckles, the Beijing Business Daily reporter called the Suzhou Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crab Industry Association, but as of press time, the phone has not been connected.
So, in the face of the mixed hairy crab market, how should consumers choose yangcheng lake hairy crabs? Suzhou Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crab Industry Association reminds consumers to distinguish between true and false Yangcheng Lake hairy crabs to see the following points: Yangcheng Lake hairy crabs have great toes and can stand on smooth glass; the color of the crabs looks very distinct, there is no variegated color; the meat of Yangcheng Lake hairy crabs is delicate, tender and sweet, and other lake crabs have a rougher taste, and their taste is far less delicious than the hairy crabs of Yangcheng Lake; the water quality of Yangcheng Lake is different from other places, and the pH is moderate, so the crab shell is very delicate after cooking, and it looks very smooth without oiling.
Mr. Yang, the person in charge of hairy crabs in Yangcheng Lake, Xiangyang, Chaoyang District, introduced that hairy crabs pay attention to "nine females and ten males" according to the lunar calendar, and the beginning of October is the time when the female crab cream is full of fat, and the male crab cream at the end of October is a good time to taste the male crab. Until the winter solstice male crab begins to anoint, you can eat delicious hairy crabs before that. After purchasing hairy crabs, consumers can cover them with a wet towel and store them refrigerated, rinse them with water when eating, and steam them with a straw rope for 15 minutes.
Beijing Business Daily reporter Bai Yang Zhang Han