A bunch of KFC locations have run out of chicken, so what now?

Kristine Fellizar
Updated

Imagine walking into your local KFC with a major craving for some of their delicious Original Recipe chicken, only to find out that they’ve run out of chicken. Like, completely run out. As in, you can’t wait 15 minutes for them to cook a new batch because there’s no more chicken left to cook. Ridiculous, right? Well, that’s the situation happening in hundreds of KFC restaurants across Britain right now. And yes, the horror is real.

According to The New York Times, Tuesday marks the third day of KFC’s “massive chicken shortage,” the result of issues with a new delivery partner. It’s gotten so bad that nearly half of its 900 locations in the U.K. have been forced to close; some have chosen to offer a limited menu, while others just closed up shop early.

It’s no surprise to anyone that this massive chicken shortage is a huge problem for the company. As The New York Times reported, the people of Britain love their chicken. Britain is the largest European market for fast food chicken, and has the fifth biggest market for KFC around the globe.

But despite that, it seems like KFC isn’t letting this get them down. As the company wrote on its website, “The chicken crossed the road, just not to our restaurants.”

Unsurprisingly, the Twitter reactions were on point. Let’s just say the irony hasn’t been lost on KFC’s consumers either.

That last one isn’t a joke. Apparently, people have been calling up local law enforcement to report that KFC is having a crisis. In fact, it’s so bad that officials have even had to tweet about the fact that a major chicken shortage at KFC is not an emergency. Obviously.

Fried chicken lovers in U.K., you can breathe easy now: According to the KFC website, stores are slowly reopening. So the problem should be solved soon enough.