Many a customer probably feels cheated after Liu Ma Kee, the city's century-old fermented bean curd brand, admitted it had been buying from the mainland bean curd for further seasoning and packaging in Hong Kong.
This is not an uncommon trade practice.
For example, clothes manufactured in the mainland before they are exported to a third region for some specific processes may also be labeled as being made in a third country even though the major part is produced in China.
But the fact that such practices are common does not infer they are right since consumers do have expectations for certain products.
In the case of Liu Ma Kee, the brand has been relying on its loyal customers who, until several days ago, had always believed that the famous fermented bean curd was locally made.
Therefore, they were willing to pay premium prices for the food to satisfy their taste buds.
Now that it has been revealed the bean curd is actually imported from the mainland, it is extremely doubtful that customers will continue to buy from its branches even if they were not closed due to the recent food-safety scandal brought to light with the help of the city's Centre for Food Safety.
Had the council not been licking its wounds from a fight with Chinese bottled-water giant Nongfu Spring, it might have already sprung to the consumers' side to defend their right to know what they had been eating.
Liu Ma Kee should have been honest 30 years ago about the change in the first place.
Although it may be a pity that the city's environmental regulations had been tightened so much back then that Liu Ma Kee found it unable to produce the bean curd locally in the city and overcame it by securing bean curd supplies from the mainland, it was unfair to keep customers in the dark about the fact.
Officially, food-safety standards in Hong Kong and the mainland may be comparable but, on practical levels, the outcomes are often vastly different.
This is why some customers are still willing to pay more for certain food products on the understanding that they are made in Hong Kong in order to avoid risking eating pre-made meals that are being promoted vigorously by authorities in the mainland.
In the consumer market, customer confidence is the key to any brand's continued success and Liu Ma Kee has set a very bad example on this.
The special fermented bean curd had been a brilliant product for a major part of its century-long history.
It was a coincidence that the Centre for Food Safety showed up in the flow of history to expose the food seller's decades-old secret to lead to the brand's sudden collapse.
Let there be no regret.
After all, Liu Ma Kee's fate was already sealed some 30 years ago when the older generations of the family decided to buy bean curd from another producer in the mainland.
In hindsight, it has taken too long for its customers to learn the dark secret.
Perhaps the only thing to miss from the whole incident is the loss of the traditional skills involved in making the original Liu Ma Kee fermented bean curd.
