The fast food chains McDonald's and the Japanese Lotteria are still struggling to get enough chips for the South Korean market. The cause is the disrupted logistics chains due to corona and weather extremes in the US, the main supplier for French fries.
Lotteria and McDonald's both posted an online announcement that French fries on the menu in some restaurants are being replaced by other side dishes. The Korea Times reports that Lotteria has been regularly replacing French fries with cheese sticks for two years now. The situation is better at McDonald's in South Korea. A representative of the company told The Korea Times that the French fries shortage is not a major issue, but does indicate that at McDonald's too, due to the French fries shortage, chips are replaced by chicken nuggets in a limited number of branches.
European fries as an alternative
Lotteria's parent company says it is looking for alternative suppliers of potato products to replace supplies from the US. "We started importing frozen potato products from Europe last year to deal with repeated delivery problems," a Lotteria spokesperson told The Korea Times. "The quality of potatoes may be different from American potatoes, but securing stable supplies is the priority." In South Korea itself, hardly any potatoes are grown due to low financial returns for the growers, according to the newspaper.