Help the crying food and save money too!

Although long used by supermarkets to clear out their precooked foods nearing expiration, convenience stores in Japan have recently been adopting stickers indicating perishable food that’s a little cheaper than the fresher stuff. It’s a part of an increasing effort by many companies in the industry to reduce the amount of food waste in Japan, and also an attractive way for consumers to combat the steadily rising cost of food as well.

▼ If you ever see milk with those stickers, you should probably get it, because chances are that milk isn’t actually anywhere near going bad. It’s free money!

I almost exclusively buy items with those stickers when they’re available. I’d like to say it’s because I’m very environmentally conscious, but the fact is I’m more cheap than anything. However, unlike me, a lot of consumers in Japan are concerned about appearing cheap, so they might pass over items with stickers that have “20 YEN OFF” in big print on them. It’s a problem convenience store giant Family Mart has set out to tackle.

They ran several sticker designs through focus groups, trying to find which ones encouraged people to buy these nearly expired items the most. As a result, they came up with the teary-eyed rice ball design. These stickers minimized the “YEN OFF” text and in its place show an adorable onigiri, its eyes welling up and issuing a plea of “Help me, please!”

▼ They also trialed different phrases like “I want you to eat me.” “If you’re going to eat, I’m here…” and “I’m gonna be thrown away soon.”

After a successful pilot program in late 2024, these stickers were deployed nationwide in March 2025. About half a year later, Family Mart reported that some locations saw an increase in stickered items sales by up to 10 percent. They estimate that this could result in a reduction of food waste to the tune of 3,000 tons annually.

▼ The evolution of the Family Mart anti-food-waste sticker

Some customers have said they used to feel embarrassed about buying food with discount stickers, but the new design made them realize they were helping out by doing so. Others were more innately affected by the heart-tugging image of a cute crying character. While it seems to influence different people differently, the data shows they work, so Family Mart has expanded them to include more food-specific designs, adding a slice of cake, slice of bread, slice of ham, and slice of fish.

Not only that, Family Mart has also decided to allow anyone to use these stickers in their own fight against food waste. Copyrights on these characters will be waived, and they are free to use for any purpose, from works of visual art to video game characters. Their main purpose, however, is for other stores and restaurants to encourage their customers to select nearly expired items more effectively as well.

Of course, you can just download them onto your own computer and use them as you wish, but they can also be printed from the copy machines in Family Mart stores. Only the basic cost of the printing will apply, and their machines can print directly to stickers in various sizes.

I think I’ll do my part by publishing a steamy food-love (FL) manga involving a love triangle between two pieces of bread and the slice of ham. Whatever it takes to curb the global blight of wasted food!

Source: Family Mart 1, 2
Top image: Family Mart
Insert images: ©SoraNews24, Family Mart 1, 2
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