TOKYO —

Piles of untouched Happy Meals littered sidewalks outside McDonald’s restaurants in Japan over the weekend, as frenzied customers scrambled to buy limited-edition sets with Pokémon cards.

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 about food waste.

See Full Page