McDonald’s fast food restaurants around the world rely on regional, or local, suppliers for their food products.

Thanks to the March 11 disasters, and radiation threat, Japanese McDonald’s lost many of their local sources. Now suppliers in the United States, and other parts of the world, are sending food to the Japanese McDonald’s.

There are more than 3,300 McDonald’s in Japan, and as many as 100 had to close down. Don’t think that what you eat in Japanese McDonald’s is the same as in the U.S.  Many foreign McDonald’s tailor their menus to what local people want to eat.

So far McDonald’s supplies from U.S., and Asian countries, had to be flown in because the situation was serious. But once on the ground there was more problems getting the food from the airport to the restaurants. They faced the same problems everyone else in Japan is facing: Power outages and fuel shortages.

Subway and Starbucks are dealing with the same problems, they just don’t have the high number of restaurants that McDonald’s does.