Fast food restaurant chain McDonald’s in Japan has canceled a planned distribution of One Piece cards with children’s sets because a previous promotion led to a huge amount of food being thrown away, and the cards are being resold at very high prices, the BBC reports.
The fast food giant announced on the 21st of August that it was temporarily suspending a promotion featuring cards based on the manga One Piece. The promotion, which started in August and offered limited-edition Pokémon cards with McDonald’s kids’ meals, led to long lines and cases of kids’ meals being bought in bulk.
Photos posted online show bags of food from the kids’ meals being dumped on the street, prompting complaints that the cards are being sold on online marketplaces for profit. The cards were supposed to be available for three days, but in many places they were no longer available after just one day.
McDonald’s Japan said in a statement on its website that
it had postponed its “One Piece” promotion, which was due to start on the 29th of August,
to review initiatives related to the Happy Meal children’s set. For now, consumers will be able to enjoy the usual children’s set toys. The Japanese Consumer Protection Center has said that McDonald’s needs to improve its sales strategy and take measures to prevent food waste.
One Piece is a comic and anime series in which a young pirate searches for a treasure called “One Piece” and fights opponents along the way. The comic series began in 1997, and an animated series was released two years later. One Piece games and toys are also popular in Japan.
McDonald’s Japan has experienced similar problems before. After the incident with the Pokémon cards, the company’s Japanese division apologized and promised to work to ensure that such situations do not happen again. Pokémon cards are very popular among children, but adults are also often interested in collecting cards. Sometimes they sell for extremely high prices. One card from a recent promotion sold for more than 33,000 dollars on an online auction site.
McDonald’s has announced that it is reviewing its gift policy after a Pokémon campaign led to large purchases with the aim of reselling the cards. One way to eliminate similar cases will be to limit the number of children’s sets per purchase.