--- title: Don’t Panic, But Japan’s McDonalds is Running Out of French Fries | TIME description: Sure the Russian economy may be tanking — but starting Wednesday, McDonald’s in Japan will no longer serve large and medium orders of fries. canonical: https://time.com/video/FbER7syG/ og:title: Don’t Panic, But Japan’s McDonalds is Running Out of French Fries og:description: Sure the Russian economy may be tanking — but starting Wednesday, McDonald’s in Japan will no longer serve large and medium orders of fries. og:url: https://time.com/video/FbER7syG/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/FbER7syG/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Don’t Panic, But Japan’s McDonalds is Running Out of French Fries twitter:description: Sure the Russian economy may be tanking — but starting Wednesday, McDonald’s in Japan will no longer serve large and medium orders of fries. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/FbER7syG/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Don’t Panic, But Japan’s McDonalds is Running Out of French Fries > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Don’t Panic, But Japan’s McDonalds is Running Out of French Fries [Watch (HLS stream): Don’t Panic, But Japan’s McDonalds is Running Out of French Fries](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/FbER7syG.m3u8) (1:38)  _Published 2014-12-17. Sure the Russian economy may be tanking — but starting Wednesday, McDonald’s in Japan will no longer serve large and medium orders of fries._ --- Jul 27, 2023 5:39 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Eating French Fries Is Linked to a Higher Risk of Death](/video/FWBIzQMb/) ### Eating French Fries Is Linked to a Higher Risk of Death [Should I Eat French Fries?](/video/kL7utfHP/) ### Should I Eat French Fries? [Our food. Your questions. What are McDonald’s fries made of?](/video/nGOOAY0j/) ### Our food. Your questions. What are McDonald’s fries made of? --- ## Transcript We don't want anyone to panic here but Japan is running out of french fries. [ FOREIGN ] Sure the Russian economy may be tanking but starting Wednesday McDonald's in Japan will no longer serve large and medium orders of fries. And believe it or not, the shortage isn't from the short- lived potato party phenomenon that took hold of South Korea and Japan a few years back, or when people used french fry sales as an excuse to buy hundreds of orders of fries. No, instead, Japan's 2014 french fry shortage is due to a labor dispute between ports. And their dock workers and its main blood supplier, the US. Specifically major west coast port cities like Portland and San Fransisco. The impact, a 45 % decline in the average monthly volume of french fry imports. Silver lining is that meals that would normally have medium fries are now 43 cents cheaper. But these are tough times for the Japanese Micky Dee's. After being rocked by a food safety scandal earlier this summer, the Japanese food chain forecasted it'd take a net loss of $ 157 million for 2014. But its doing everything in its power to get the Japanese people their potatoes. According to one Japanese outlet, the company's airlifted more than 1, 000 tons of French fries from the U. S. and started taking imports from cities on the East Coast. The Japanese French fry lovers won't be the only ones to suffer if things don't improve. The National Retail Federation and the National Association of Manufacturers estimate that if labor negotiations on the west coast fail. 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