People line up in front of the JENNY BAKERY at Global Harbor mall in Putuo District when it opened on Friday.(Jia Yanan)
Shanghai's Putuo District officials reprimanded a newly opened bakery on Monday for its uncanny closeness to a popular Hong Kong brand after unsuspecting customers queued up for hours only to discover it was all a scam.
JENNY BAKERY opened a store on Friday in the district's popular Global Harbor mall, selling products like butter cookies in signature teddy bear tins — eerily similar to the popular Hong Kong brand, Jenny Bakery.
The difference, it at all there was one, was the capitalized letters.
In several online promotions, JENNY BAKERY suggested that "the maker of the most tasty cookies in Hong Kong had come to Shanghai."
The Putuo Market Supervision and Management Bureau said it had warned JENNY BAKERY to make it clear that it had no ties with the Hong Kong store.
It warned the bakery could face fine if investigations revealed that it had deliberately tried to indulge in false publicity.
People had to register online for an appointment to buy the cookies. On the opening day, they stood for hours to buy the cookies, a box of which was being sold for 98 yuan (US$15.80) each.
In Hong Kong, they are available for HK$70 (US$9).
As the fraud came to light, JENNY BAKERY came under fire from buyers.
"I found it was produced in Shenzhen after I bought it. It seemed strange," a resident surnamed Song told Shanghai Television. "The taste was also different from the one in Hong Kong."
STV said some of the buyers demanded a refund from the store.
The Hong Kong-based Jenny Bakery, which has been in the business since 2005, said it does not have any stores on the mainland, and that all its cookies were hand-made.
JENNY BAKERY said in a statement that it was a legally-registered brand and that all its operation was legal.
There was some truth in that — the company was registered in Shenzhen on March 20, 2015.
Jenny Bakery, as a Hong Kong brand, was not registered on the mainland in its brand name. It said on a statement on its website that it had only two outlets in Hong Kong, and that it had not entrusted any company in Shenzhen to make or market its product.
JENNY BAKERY had stopped all sales as of yesterday but not before having a dig at the popular Hong Kong brand, whose products are available online on the mainland but under the registered name "Clever Bear."
In a notice put up outside its Shanghai outlet, JENNY BAKERY claimed it was the "only legitimate holder of the brand name Jenny Bakery."
It said it was "deeply disturbed by Clever Bear selling similar products in the name of Jenny Bakery."
