McDonald's Holdings Company Japan said in a statement on Friday that the impact of flood damage on the port of Vancouver and other disruptions since last year would delay an expected shipment of potatoes from North America.

Global shipping operations continue to be severely affected by a mix of factors including COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, extreme weather and a rapid recovery in demand.

As a result, McDonald's said that from Sunday it would sell only S-sized fries for about a month "to make sure we have plenty of inventory and our customers can enjoy McDonald's fries without interruption."

The fast-food chain took the same step for a week at the end of December at its roughly 2,900 branches in Japan.

(Reporting by Chang-Ran Kim; Editing by Alexander Smith)