KFC Chinas Dimoo blind boxes under fire as toy promotion fuels frenzy of wastefulness, over
A Chinese consumer rights group is taking KFC to task for its recent meal promotion, arguing that the popular fast-food chain’s limited-edition toys resulted in excessive food waste and compulsive overspending by customers.
The pointed criticism by the China Consumer Association came after KFC teamed up with Pop Mart, a Chinese toymaker known for its mystery boxes, i.e. “blind boxes”. Together, they offered collectable versions of large-eyed and round-faced Dimoo toys with certain KFC meals, in celebration of the brand’s 35th anniversary of its first restaurant in China.
Obtaining a full six-figure set required customers to purchase at least six meals, but the odds of getting them in one go were remote – with a 1-72 chance of obtaining the rarest toy in the lot.
Such a marketing strategy, the association said, is dangerous because it encourages wastefulness.
“This can easily lead consumers to spend impulsively just to procure the limited-edition, blind-box toys, thus buying excessive food and causing food waste,” it said.
That exclusivity prompted one person to spend 10,494 yuan (US$1,650) on 106 meals to collect the set, according to Wednesday’s statement by the association, adding that others have even hired people to buy the 99-yuan meals, and often the food is simply thrown away.
Demand was so great that many customers left online comments for KFC earlier this month, with some complaining that all of the meals had been snatched up by scalpers, and that full sets of the Dimoo toys were being sold for hundreds of yuan online.
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Reached for comment on Thursday, a customer service representative at KFC told the Post that the promotion was scheduled to last until this coming Sunday, but it was ended early because the blind boxes had sold out.
The association also called attention to an anti-food-waste law that China passed in April to penalise those who waste food – a phenomenon that President Xi Jinping described as “shocking”.Food waste can be seen as a touchy issue in China, as generations of people were raised with reminders of mass starvation and food shortages that their elder family members suffered through during China’s great famine from 1959-61, when tens of millions died from starvation.
China’s restaurants waste 17 million to 18 million tonnes of food a year – enough to feed up to 50 million people, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and other institutions.
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