SHANGHAI, Aug 18 -- ADDING spice to the fierce competition of the mooncake business, a Website has teamed up with a food manufacturer to launch personalized mooncakes.

The city-based Website, www.my51.com, is offering a little extra for its customers before the Mid-Autumn Festival which falls on September 25 this year.

Through the Website customers can design their own patterns for their mooncakes and add personalized greetings, logos - even English phrases.

"We can produce any kind of mooncakes - whatever the customer wants, we can personalize them as well," said Li Ming, executive director of the Website. "We will make mooncakes with special patterns and the customers can even provide their own recipes."

As people become more health conscious, many want to avoid the extra calories packed into the traditional mixture of baked salted egg yolk, bean and lotus seed paste and plenty of sugar and oil, Li said.

"Customers can select the ingredients they think are healthiest for their own mooncakes," he said.

Each box of packaged mooncakes costs between 70 yuan (US$9.2) to 180 yuan and the minimum order is 100 .

Li said the mooncakes will be cooked by a Jiangxi Province food company and customers will receive their personalized mooncakes by express delivery two or three weeks after they order.

"The special stamp that has been used to make the customer's personalized mooncakes will also be sent to the customer for no extra charge," Li said.

However experts said, though the service was creative, it was a consequence of the fierce competition in the mooncake market and none of the major food companies in the city are yet involved in this type of service.

"The personalized mooncake is creative but as this is only provided by small food companies, I cannot give assurances about food safety," said Gao Kemin, director of the Shanghai Food Association Bakery Commission.