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Live in the United Kingdom - or visiting soon - and love McDonald's? Well, we have some bad news for you - there are no McDonald's milkshakes left in the U.K. That's right! Read on to find out why...

U.K. McDonald’s Doesn’t Serve Milkshakes Anymore

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The United States is not the only spot struggling with staff members and supplies in local fast-food restaurants. Over 1,300 McDonald's ran out of milkshakes and bottled drinks in the U.K., leaving the customers without their favorite menu items. "Like most retailers, we are currently experiencing some supply chain issues, impacting the availability of a small number of products. Bottled drinks and milkshakes are temporarily unavailable in restaurants across England, Scotland and Wales, a spokesperson for McDonald’s said in a statement. “We apologize for any inconvenience and thank our customers for their continued patience. We are working hard to return these items to the menu as soon as possible.”

Surprisingly, McDonald’s is one of the last fast-food chains to experience struggles because of the pandemic and Brexit. These two issues caused staff members to leave, as well as trading chains with European Union to collapse. Before McDonald issued a statement, Nando's closed 45 of the restaurants in the U.K. Just like milkshakes, Nando’s couldn’t find supplies for the iconic peri peri chicken. In addition to the staff shortages, new coronavirus rules were introduced in the United Kingdom. It requires isolation for those contact with coronavirus-affected people, even if they are fully vaccinated! And it’s not the only factor ruining the plans for fast-food restaurants.

The U.K. Faces Global Issues

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Apart from staff shortage in the restaurants like McDonald’s, U.K. is also facing a lack of truck drivers. Because of that, supplies don’t get delivered as fast as before COVID. The Road Haulage Association, in fact, agreed with that statement. It said that Britain is short up to 100,000 truck drivers. 20,000 of them are EU nationals that left the country after Brexit. Furthermore, farms don’t have enough people to supply enough meat. James Hook, who runs farms that supply one-third of the chickens sold in the United Kingdom, said that there have been double the number of free working places. During the holiday season, there probably won’t be enough turkey for the whole country. Ranjit Singh Boparan, the founder of 2 Sisters Food Group, explained that Brexit and pandemic created a 15% labor shortage in the company.

“The operating environment has deteriorated so profoundly I can see no other outcome than major food shortages in the UK. Supply of chicken and turkey is under threat,” Boparan said in a statement. Arla, which supplies milk to local supermarkets, agreed with Borapan’s point of view. “Our assessment is that we're in a driver shortage crisis and therefore we're asking for the industry and government to work together to recognize we're in a crisis and actually address the issue,” managing director Ash Amirahmadi told the BBC. As result, the whole U.K. economy is losing in the worldwide competition, spreading across both the manufacturing and services.

“Analysis of comments provided by survey respondents suggested that incidences of reduced output due to shortages of staff or materials were fourteen times higher than usual and the largest since the survey began in January 1998,” IHS Markit said.

Sources: CNN, The Guardian