Buy It Lettuce: Ajinomoto put Tatsuya Fujiwara on 10,000 lettuces

In July 2026, Japanese shoppers found actor Tatsuya Fujiwara staring back at them from the vegetable aisle. Ajinomoto wrapped his face around 10,000 heads of lettuce, then placed a recipe QR code on the reverse. The campaign, Buy It Lettuce, was created with JA Zen-Noh Nagano to promote Cook Do Oyster Sauce and help households finish the vegetable before it spoiled.

The face earned the first look. The recipes gave people a reason to keep going.

The vegetable aisle became the media

A head of lettuce already looks a little like a human head. Ajinomoto completed the resemblance with a transparent film carrying Fujiwara’s eyes, nose and serious expression.

When the wrapper sat around the vegetable, its leaves became his hair. Several of the finished packs placed his face directly towards passing shoppers, making the produce section feel like a display of identical green heads waiting to be chosen.

The Japanese campaign name also played with the word for lettuce and a request to buy it. Meanwhile, Fujiwara extended the joke by explaining that Ajinomoto had asked him to lend his face to a lettuce crisis. He agreed, only to discover that the brand meant it literally.

The campaign reached selected supermarkets in the Tokyo metropolitan area and the Kansai region from 21 July. The limited run included 10,000 lettuces supplied through JA Zen-Noh Nagano.

That number kept the execution small enough to feel like an unusual discovery. At the same time, it gave the idea enough physical scale to take over several produce displays.

The back of the wrapper finished the idea

The face could persuade someone to pick up a lettuce. However, attention alone would not solve the problem Ajinomoto wanted to address.

The brand’s own research suggested that many households mainly used lettuce in salads and struggled to finish a whole head before it lost its freshness. Ajinomoto therefore placed a QR code on the reverse of every special wrapper.

The code led to seven recipes designed to use lettuce in larger amounts and in less expected ways. These included chilled lettuce rice porridge, cold mixed noodles, a garlic grill, an overfilled sandwich and a version of dumplings made with lettuce.

Cook Do Oyster Sauce connected the recipes back to the product. Instead of presenting it only as an ingredient for Chinese stir-fries, the campaign showed it being poured, mixed and used without lengthy preparation.

As a result, the wrapper performed two different jobs. The front helped the lettuce stand out before purchase. The back helped the buyer decide what to do with it at home.

That journey from shelf to kitchen gave the strange packaging a practical ending.

The lettuce already had a history with Fujiwara

Buy It Lettuce continued an existing Cook Do idea rather than introducing a completely new pairing.

Fujiwara had already appeared in advertising for Instant Disappearing Lettuce, a simple dish made by briefly cooking lettuce and adding oyster sauce. The name suggested that a whole pile could vanish quickly once it was prepared that way.

Earlier in 2026, Ajinomoto also opened a temporary Instant Disappearing Lettuce Bar in Tokyo. Visitors could try the recipe and receive lettuce to use at home.

The new packaging moved the same message into supermarkets during the summer season. However, it removed the need for a separate event space. The media, product sample and vegetable were now the same object.

The involvement of JA Zen-Noh Nagano also connected the promotion to a major lettuce-growing region. During summer and autumn, large amounts of lettuce from Nagano enter the Japanese market. Furthermore, hot weather can make freshness harder to maintain once the vegetable reaches homes.

Cook Do therefore benefited from showing another use for its sauce. Growers benefited from encouraging people to buy and finish more lettuce. Shoppers received a pack that was difficult to overlook and easier to use.

What Made It Different

Celebrity packaging often places a familiar face beside the product.

Buy It Lettuce made Fujiwara’s face part of the product’s physical form. The rounded vegetable shaped his head, while the leaves completed the image. Removing the lettuce would also remove the joke.

More importantly, the campaign linked its most shareable feature to a useful action. The strange face attracted photographs and online conversation. The QR code then redirected that attention towards recipes designed to use the whole vegetable.

It is still too early to know whether the campaign will reduce household waste or increase sales. The limited distribution also means its direct effect will be modest.

Even so, the idea is complete at the point of purchase. The shopper sees a face asking to be taken home. After that, the wrapper explains how to make the lettuce disappear.

Credits

Buy It Lettuce / Tatsuya Fujiwara’s Katteku Lettuce (2026) — Cook Do Oyster Sauce / Ajinomoto, Japan. Agricultural partner: JA Zen-Noh Nagano. Talent: Tatsuya Fujiwara. Retail rollout: selected Ginza Nagano, Heiwado and Comodi Iida locations. Limited production: 10,000 wrapped lettuce heads.