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McDonald's Tokyo branch: M and L fries temporarily unavailable
Photo: AFP
The fast food chain McDonald's in Japan only sells small portions of french fries for a week due to acute delivery problems.
Around 2900 fast-food restaurants are affected by the problems.
In order to avoid further bottlenecks, the portion sizes have been limited from December 24th to December 30th, the company announced.
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The company gives several reasons for the delivery difficulties: On the one hand, the import of potatoes was delayed due to flooding in the port of Vancouver in Canada.
On the other hand, supplies are suffering from the general logistics problems caused by the corona crisis.
To compensate, they are trying to import potatoes by plane, it said.
Fried chicken at Christmas
McDonald's had a similar problem in December 2014 when massive industrial disputes between dock workers, terminal operators and shipping companies broke out on the other side of the Pacific.
At that time, the company imported around 1,000 tons of sliced potatoes by air.
More than 3,000 McDonald's restaurants in Japan stated at the time that they only wanted to sell small portions of French fries for a while in order to avoid further failures.
The McDonald’s potato shortage should not have any impact on Christmas.
In Japan, people traditionally celebrate the quiet time with a hearty helping of fried chicken - from fast-food competitor KFC.
apr / dpa
