Following a chaotic Happy Meal campaign that resulted in piles of wasted cheeseburgers in plastic bags, the Consumer Affairs Agency of Japan requested McDonald’s to take action regarding the recent issue. According to The Nikkei, at a regular press conference held on August 21, Agency representative Natsuko Horii revealed that they have made a direct request to McDonald’s on August 20, calling for the fast-food company to revise their marketing method in a way that would reduce food waste.
On a related note, McDonald’s recently published an announcement indefinitely postponing a One Piece trading card-themed Happy Meal campaign, as a part of their new measures against food waste and scalping. Since the announcement was posted on the same day as the Consumer Affairs Agency reportedly contacted McDonald’s, it is very likely that the Agency’s request influenced McDonald’s decision to shelve the upcoming campaign.
The problem of scalping-induced food waste started following the launch of McDonald’s Pokémon Trading Card Happy Meal Campaign on August 8 – but this wasn’t the fast-food company’s first Happy Meal-related controversy this year. As reported by Yahoo!Japan, in May, a Chiikawa-themed Happy Meal campaign ended only a day after the launch of its second wave of toys due to excessive scalping, followed by online criticism.
Aware that the situation could possibly escalate, on the first day of the Pokémon TCG Happy Meal campaign, McDonald’s partnered with mercari, a Japanese online marketplace, in an effort to subdue scalping. In the partnership announcement, they also asked their customers to refrain from ordering more food that they can eat and reselling the Pokémon cards on the platform (or anywhere else). Unfortunately, the situation quickly went out of hand – causing McDonald’s to pull the plug on both the Pokemon and the One Piece TCG campaigns.
As of now, there is no news on when (or if) the One Piece TCG Happy Meal campaign is going to take place, and all of the toys currently sold in McDonald’s Japan’s Happy Meals are from previous campaigns. As McDonald’s explained that they are in the process of implementing stricter measures in order to tackle the scalping and food waste problems, it is yet to be seen when they are going to resume Happy Meal collaborations with big, domestically popular franchises.
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