NEWS: Kenya
KFC announces a potato shortage and is lynched.

Kenyans on Twit­ter were furi­ous on Mon­day after the Ken­tucky Fried Chick­en (KFC) fast food store announced it was out of potatoes.

In a state­ment, KFC said Kenyans have loved their crisps dur­ing the hol­i­day sea­son, which they are now run­ning out of.

The fast food store said that while work­ing to solve the pota­to short­age, it will offer alter­na­tives, includ­ing rolls and ugali.

“Fam, that was real­ly a Fura­ha in Decem­ber. Mliku­la shere­he with your KFC favorites. You liked our chips a lit­tle too much, and we’re run­ning out of them,” KFC tweeted.

” Sor­ry ! Our team is work­ing hard to resolve the issue. In the mean­time, here are some SWAP options for com­bo meals if you’re in the mood for our Kuku. ”

KFC, along with oth­er fast food out­lets, import­ed pota­toes from over­seas, “to meet inter­na­tion­al stan­dards” from var­i­ous franchises.

Pota­to pro­duc­tion is also on the decline, with many coun­tries report­ing short­ages in Decem­ber 2021. The Unit­ed States, Japan and South Africa are among the coun­tries that have report­ed shortages.

Accord­ing to Busi­ness Dai­ly, KFC’s CEO for East Africa, Jacques The­unis­sen attrib­ut­es the short­age to delays in ship­ping lines due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The ships have been delayed for over a month now, but we are work­ing hard to restore them as the first con­tain­ers arrive in the port tomor­row (Tues­day).”

The announce­ment, how­ev­er, did not bode well with many Kenyans voic­ing dis­ap­point­ment, won­der­ing why KFC could­n’t source pota­toes locally.