The same appearance, but less quantity. That is the formula that the Denny’s restaurant chain in Japan has applied to reduce food waste in one of its star products, without compromising the appeal and its “instagrammable” aesthetic that has conquered consumers.

Following an idea from the creative agency I&S BBDO, in January of this year the company launched “The 1/2 Parfait”, a version of the popular French dessert with half the usual amount and presented in a container also reduced by half. That is to say, seen from the front the candy maintained its photogenic appearance, but it was actually presented in an “incomplete” glass.

To make the particular container, the brand collaborated with glass craftsman Masao Nakamura, from the Nakamura Glass Studio in Tokyo, who applied the traditional Japanese glass blowing technique to create the exclusive “halved glass”, which retains the visual impact of a complete *parfait*, but with a reduced portion.

The objective of the initiative was to confront a widespread habit among younger consumers: ordering dishes to photograph and share on social networks, but then not finishing them due to their size. All this according to what Denny’s explained in a statement, a survey that revealed that 54% of respondents had ordered food thinking about how it would look in the photos, while approximately one in three admitted to having left food uneaten.

Now, after ten months of sales of “The 1/2 Parfait”, the restaurant chain has shared the results. The launch took place in its two establishments in Shibuya and Ikebukuro, but its good reception led to expanding the proposal to four more locations. The company says it reached 380% of its sales goal in two weeks, and managed to sell more than 3,000 parfaits through April.

As a result of the good reception, Denny’s continued to expand the presence of the product in points of sale until reaching 90 establishments in Japan. By the beginning of September, more than 23,000 parfaits had already been sold, many of the sales motivated precisely by the brand’s communication and message around reducing food waste.

However, as they explain in a statement, the impact of the initiative has gone beyond sales, since 81% of those surveyed stated that the experience made them more aware of food waste. On the other hand, the brand points out that the “1/2 Parfait” had a considerable impact in terms of public relations: it obtained extensive media coverage, reaching 68 million people and generating more than 15.5 million views on social networks. The value of the media impact obtained exceeded 2.5 million US dollars.

That is why Denny’s has announced that it will continue to launch seasonal versions of the “1/2 Parfait” with different fruits and that it plans to expand its availability to 300 establishments throughout the country by 2027. And in the long term, it assures that it intends to extend its solution beyond its restaurants and work for its adoption throughout the food industry in Japan with the ambition of contributing to the more than two million tons of food waste that the commercial sector generates in the country (2024 data).