Vkusno & Totchka, the chain that has taken over McDonald’s restaurants in Russia, has removed fries from the menu after Western sanctions against Moscow making it harder to import the product and a poor harvest in Russia in 2021. The information comes from The Guardian newspaper.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 and has since suffered Western sanctions alongside major business exodus from the country. Such is the case of McDonald’s, which ceased operations in March and sold all of its restaurants to a local licensee in May.
The first Vkusno & Totchka restaurants opened in Russia on June 12 and sold nearly 120,000 hamburgers on the opening day. Last week, customers started posting pictures of menus with no fries.
The group says potatoes will return fully to restaurant menus “at the beginning of the next harvest, fall 2022.” In Russia, autumn begins in September.
In a statement, Vkusno & Totchka say it is now “impossible to import from markets that could become temporary suppliers of potatoes”.
In June, Oleg Paroev, chief executive of Vkusno & Tochka, told R that “a significant percentage” of the ingredients come from abroad.
Despite the problems, Russia’s agriculture ministry said last week that the potato crop will be larger than that of 2021. “The new crop is already arriving, which rules out the possibility of shortages.”