Piles of untouched Happy Meals littered sidewalks outside McDonald’s restaurants in Japan as frenzied customers scrambled to buy limited-edition sets with Pokémon cards over the weekend.
The promotional tie-up between McDonald’s and Pokémon ended just hours after it launched on Saturday as customers bought bulk orders of the meals to get their hands on an exclusive set of cards for resale, discarding the food entirely.
A Happy Meal set costs about $3.50 (around 510 yen) – with food, a drink and a toy – but scalpers are listing McDonald’s Japan Pokémon cards on eBay for $28 each.
Photos on social media showed dozens of bags of Happy Meals dumped outside a restaurant, as well as unclaimed food left sitting idly on self-pick-up tables, prompting public outcries of food wastage.
“We regret to inform you that the distribution of Pokémon cards to customers who purchased the Pokémon Happy Meal, which was scheduled for three days only from August 9 to 11, has ended at many stores due to higher than expected sales,” McDonald’s Japan posted on its official website.
