Topics: Food and Drink, McDonalds, World News
McDonald's has been forced to issue an apology statement after their latest Happy Meal toys in Japan caused utter chaos.
Growing up, a Happy Meal was a top-tier treat as a kid, not for the food but mostly because of the cool collectible toys that come along with them. I'm talking Furby plushies and mini music players blasting out Girls Aloud in 2006.
And although they are technically meant for children, there's nothing really stopping you from getting your hands on one as an adult, as long as you don't mind a teeny tiny bag of fries and four measly nuggets.
However, Japan's latest collection was actually too good and meant that resellers rushed to the fast food chain locations and snapped up all of the meals and toys in just one day, according to AP News and Japanese media reports.
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The latest campaign for the meals, called Happy Sets in Japan, came with a tiny plastic toy and a coveted Pokemon card - a collectors dream.
It's no secret that Pokemon is huge all over the world among adults and children alike, with many people forking out hordes of cash to get their hands on the rarest cards.
So, when an affordable fast food chain began including them in a meal, you can easily predict the mania that followed.
The rarest kinds of these cards sell for around $1,000 a pop, meaning resellers would be making a humungous profit from them.
And that's exactly what happened, after selling out in record time, the cards were later being resold for up to tens of thousands of yen (hundreds of dollars) online.
Another issue is that the resellers were flocking to the stores in huge unprecedented numbers to make some money, buying multiple meals and leaving the food and rubbish outside the stores, causing large amounts of waste.
Huge mounds of uneaten food was left near the store as most people were interested in one thing only - the cards.
After all of this unfolded, McDonald's Japan were made aware of the situation and have since issued a statement apologising for not putting harsher regulations in place.
In a message shared with AP on Monday (11 August), the company said: "We do not believe in abandoning and discarding food. This situation goes against our longtime philosophy that we have cherished as a restaurant to ‘offer a fun dining experience for children and families.' We sincerely accept that our preparations had not been adequate."
The chain added that they're working on a way to stop something like this from happening again, including limiting the number of meals each person can buy and ending online orders.
McDonalds also said they may begin to deny service to customers who fail to abide by the rules.
They signed off with: "We vow to return to the basics of what lies behind the Happy Set, which is about helping to bring smiles to families so we can contribute to the wholesome development of the hearts and bodies of children, who are our future."
