The global toymaker, Playmobil has embarked on a bold new venture with McDonald’s and the Marketing Store to bring bio-based, sugar cane plastic toys to the Happy Meal for the very first time.
Launching this month, each Happy Meal will now contain a Playmobil animal figure made from at least 95% sugar cane-based plastic. This is the first time a bio-based plastic toy has featured on the McDonald’s menu.
The launch follows what has been a two-year search on the part of McDonald’s to source and introduce a more sustainable material to its Happy Meal toy ranges.
“Playmobil stands for a sustainable play experience. We are pursuing various approaches to continuously increase the proportion of non-primarily fossil-based plastics in the entire range and we are increasingly using plant-based materials,” said Playmobil’s ceo, Bahri Kurter.
The company’s long-term goal is to make all business models circular to establish a material cycle that is as closed as possible. For Playmobil, its partnership with McDonald’s – bringing the exclusive animal figurine collection to restaurants across some 70 countries worldwide, is a milestone in taking the technology mainstream.
“In Germany in particular, Playmobil is a name that is associated with quality and great educational play value. This fits perfectly with the high standards we set for our Happy Meal toys,” said Tomasz Debowski, chief marketing officer at McDonald’s Germany.
“We are also proud of the sugar cane-based raw material that we are using for the first time, because it is another important step on the way to a better McDonald’s.”
The design of the new collection of figures was developed in close co-operation with Playmobil to ensure their compatibility with the regular Playmobil play system.
This is another phase of the Playmobil parent brand – the Horst Brandstätter Group’s – ambitious sustainability targets. The Group wants to achieve climate neutrality by 2027 and is working on a series of projects and initiatives to be part of closed loop material cycles. The McDonald’s partnership follows a major overhaul of the Playmobil toddler portfolio which switched from fossil- to plant-based materials at the start of 2024.
