diff --git a/daemon/mqtt.c b/daemon/mqtt.c
index 0e5e84522..d0fa3b28b 100644
--- a/daemon/mqtt.c
+++ b/daemon/mqtt.c
@@ -479,6 +479,8 @@ static void mqtt_global_stats(JsonBuilder *json) {
 				json_builder_add_int_value(json, m->int_value);
 			else if (m->is_double)
 				json_builder_add_double_value(json, m->double_value);
+			else if (m->value_raw)
+				json_builder_add_string_value(json, m->value_raw);
 			else
 				json_builder_add_string_value(json, m->value_short);
 		}
diff --git a/daemon/statistics.c b/daemon/statistics.c
index 837fd3d18..645ba7e9e 100644
--- a/daemon/statistics.c
+++ b/daemon/statistics.c
@@ -227,6 +227,9 @@ static void add_metric(GQueue *ret, const char *label, const char *desc, const c
 		va_start(ap, fmt2);
 		m->value_short = g_strdup_vprintf(fmt1, ap);
 		va_end(ap);
+		if (m->value_short[0] == '"' && m->value_short[1] != '\0'
+				&& m->value_short[strlen(m->value_short)-1] == '"')
+			m->value_raw = g_strndup(m->value_short + 1, strlen(m->value_short) - 2);
 	}
 	if (fmt2) {
 		va_start(ap, fmt2);
@@ -714,6 +717,7 @@ static void free_stats_metric(void *p) {
 	g_free(m->label);
 	g_free(m->value_long);
 	g_free(m->value_short);
+	g_free(m->value_raw);
 	g_free(m->prom_label);
 	g_slice_free1(sizeof(*m), m);
 }
@@ -762,15 +766,12 @@ const char *statistics_ng(bencode_item_t *input, bencode_item_t *output) {
 			if (m->is_int)
 				bencode_dictionary_add_integer(dict, bencode_strdup(buf, m->label),
 						m->int_value);
-			else {
-				size_t len = strlen(m->value_short);
-				if (len >= 2 && m->value_short[0] == '"' && m->value_short[len-1] == '"')
-					bencode_dictionary_add(dict, bencode_strdup(buf, m->label),
-							bencode_string_len_dup(buf, m->value_short+1, len-2));
-				else
-					bencode_dictionary_add_string_dup(dict, bencode_strdup(buf, m->label),
-							m->value_short);
-			}
+			else if (m->value_raw)
+				bencode_dictionary_add_string_dup(dict, bencode_strdup(buf, m->label),
+						m->value_raw);
+			else
+				bencode_dictionary_add_string_dup(dict, bencode_strdup(buf, m->label),
+						m->value_short);
 			continue;
 		}
 
diff --git a/include/statistics.h b/include/statistics.h
index d7339dfcc..fb1a19fa0 100644
--- a/include/statistics.h
+++ b/include/statistics.h
@@ -92,6 +92,7 @@ struct stats_metric {
 	char *descr;
 	char *value_short;
 	char *value_long;
+	char *value_raw;
 	int64_t int_value;
 	double double_value;
 	int is_bracket;