A Japanese snack company called Calbee announced Monday it would stop selling 18 types of potato chips and suspend the sale of 15 more after a bad potato harvest made normal production impossible. Faced with a shortage of the crispy snack, Japanese consumers have since gone on a chip-buying spree, emptying store shelves and reselling bags of chips for as much as six times their normal price online.
Calbee was importing American potatoes to supplement its supply, but decided they are "of insufficient quality and cannot cover the deficits" — which is totally fine, because it means Americans get to enjoy more of the cheap, delicious snack that we invented.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
What is an upside-down car loan and how do you get out of it?the explainer This happens when the outstanding balance on a car loan exceeds the vehicle's worth
-
Is Trump America's CEO?Talking Points The party of free enterprise turns to 'cronyism'
-
Trump said to seek government stake in IntelSpeed Read The president and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan reportedly discussed the proposal at a recent meeting
-
Trump said to seek government stake in Intel
Speed Read The president and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan reportedly discussed the proposal at a recent meeting
-
US to take 15% cut of AI chip sales to ChinaSpeed Read Nvidia and AMD will pay the Trump administration 15% of their revenue from selling artificial intelligence chips to China
-
NFL gets ESPN stake in deal with DisneySpeed Read The deal gives the NFL a 10% stake in Disney's ESPN sports empire and gives ESPN ownership of NFL Network
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B dealSpeed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
-
FCC greenlights $8B Paramount-Skydance mergerSpeed Read The Federal Communications Commission will allow Paramount to merge with the Hollywood studio Skydance
-
Tesla reports plummeting profitsSpeed Read The company may soon face more problems with the expiration of federal electric vehicle tax credits
-
Dollar faces historic slump as stocks hit new highSpeed Read While stocks have recovered post-Trump tariffs, the dollar has weakened more than 10% this year
-
Economists fear US inflation data less reliablespeed read The Labor Department is collecting less data for its consumer price index due to staffing shortages
