The next time you pull up to a McDonald’s drive-thru window and order a large serving of French fries, drop one on the ground for our comrades in Japan, where customers can only get small orders of fries right now. What fresh hell is this?

In a move that might have the more enterprising customers buying multiple small fries just to get the potatoes of a large fry, Kotaku cites a report from Asahi News that says Japanese McDonald’s locations are only selling the smallest size because of a labor contract dispute that’s holding up shipments at U.S. West Coast ports and cutting off the country’s supply of American potatoes.

The fewer potatoes you’ve got, the fewer french fries you can churn out. Thus, the cutbacks. Meals that usually come with medium fries will be 50 yen cheaper, so it’s not like customers will be paying the same for less fry-age.

Right now, it’s unclear when the potatoes will return in abundance to the island. The fry rationing starts at McDonald’s locations around the country on Dec. 17. There’s no word if there’s a per-person fry order limit, or if hungry customers can just order like multiple small fries instead.

McDonald’s Is Only Selling Small-Sized Fries in Japan [Kotaku]

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