The COVID crisis marches on, causing disruptions in some surprising aspects of our lives. Let’s learn about some problems Japan is facing, including McDonald’s having difficulty getting enough potatoes for their customers in Japan!
McDonald’s Removes Large French Fries From the Menu
First came news that you can no longer order the large size of French Fries at McDonald’s in Japan, due to poor supply from overseas. Japan’s potatoes are shipped in through Canada, and the logistics issues related to shipping across the Pacific that have caused delays getting all manner of products this year are now affecting the country’s food supply. These supply issues have been bad enough to push Japan’s export-centric economy into contraction in late 2021.
Potatoes aren’t the only thing that’s hard to get enough of. Convenience store Family Mart has had to put up signs apologizing for the lack of its popular FamiChiki fried chicken due to the inability to obtain enough chicken for customers. Oh, the humanity!
But while McDonald’s and Family Mart are having supply issues, Japanese dairy farmers are having the opposite problem: too much milk. People aren’t consuming as many milk products as they have in the past, yet the ongoing production of milk can’t be easily adjusted because dairy cows must be milked every day. And milk can be stored forever, causing Japan’s already bad food waste problems to be worse than usual. Mottainai!
Where will all this insanity of having too much milk end?
J-List turned 25 years old in 2021, thanks to the kind support of our customers over the years. Here’s a blog post about the history of our crazy company!
Other Crises Japan Faces
Then there’s the problem of what to do about the “Abe Masks,” named after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. When the COVID crisis hit in 2020, the Japanese government commissioned the creation of cloth masks which were distributed to every household, including ours. The masks were very unpopular because they’re too small and each household received only two masks, causing Japanese people to make snarky memes on the Internet.
Adding fuel to the fire, the government still has 82 million of the masks in storage waiting to be distributed, which cost them $100 million to make and $5 million per month to warehouse. Additionally, a large number of the masks are reported to be defective, causing such a headache for the government that they’re finally going to be disposed of.
While many groups are being economically hit by the crisis, one group I feel the sorriest for is taxi drivers. Last night a driver I chatted with reported that taxi use was up to maybe 50% of pre-COVID levels, which is an improvement over the depths of the crisis but still bad. With virtually zero visitors from abroad due to the challenges of the virus, I don’t know when this situation will improve. If you’ve ever visited Japan you’ll know how helpful and knowledgeable Japanese taxi drivers are, always polishing their cars to be perfectly clean when they’re waiting for a fare. Oh, and pretty much all taxi companies purchased sparkling new vehicles in preparation for the flood of foreigners that was supposed to come in with the 2020 Olympics, which they’re still paying off now.
Thanks for reading this post about McDonald’s having difficulty getting enough potatoes to make French Fries in Japan. Got any questions or ideas for posts you’d like us to write about? Post it below, hit us up on Twitter!
This has been a great year for J-List’s sister company JAST USA, with the company getting tons of new titles into the hands of fans. And now they’re experimenting with fun new products for eroge fans, like this Majikoi Throw Pillow featuring Koyuki! Grab yours here!
