McDonald's has stopped selling Big Macs in Venezuela

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Jorge Silva/Reuters

Deep-fried yucas are served at a McDonald's restaurant in Caracas January 6, 2015. Venezuelan fast-food lovers are mourning the disappearance of McDonald's golden staple: the french fry. A recent shortage at the U.S. fast food chain comes as socialist Venezuela grapples with shortfalls of basic goods ranging from medicines to flour due to strict currency controls that stymie imports. McDonald's restaurants are coping by replacing the spuds with salad or local fare such as fried yuca or "arepa" corn pancakes - but Golden Arches fans are none too happy about the new meal.

McDonald's has stopped selling Big Macs in Venezuela, according to an AFP report from earlier this week.

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The fast food giant reportedly is no longer able to source the slice of bread that goes between the two meat patties, AFP reports, citing Venezuelan media.

"McDonald's Venezuela is working to resolve this temporary situation," Daniel Schleiniger, a spokesman for Arcos Dorados, which operates McDonald's restaurants throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, wrote in an emailed statement to Business Insider.

"Together with our supplier, we are evaluating the best options that will allow us to continue serving high quality food to our customers. For the moment, we offer other menu options such as the Quarter Pounder, CBO and McNífica, among others."

This isn't the first time that a McDonald's item has gone off the menu in Venezuela. Back in January 2015, numerous franchises ran out of potatoes, prompting restaurants to replace french fries with alternative options like yuca fries. French fries were eventually brought back in late 2015 - but with a hefty price tag.

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The on-going deterioration of Venezuela's economic and political situations has led to huge shortages of goods and food over the last few months.

Things have gotten so bad that Venezuela even temporarily opened its borders to Colombia two weekends in a row so that over a hundred thousand Venezuelans could enter the country to buy necessary goods like food and medicine. Demand for sugar and toilet paper was reportedly particularly high.

Venezuela Colombia border crossing

REUTERS/Carlos Eduardo Ramirez

People cross over the Simon Bolivar international bridge to Colombia to take advantage of the temporary border opening in San Antonio del Tachira, Venezuela, July 17, 2016.

Venezuela, an OPEC member and keeper of the largest oil reserves in the world, heavily relies on the commodity for its export revenues. The combination of years of economic mismanagement and the huge slump in oil prices over the last two years has now left the country in a difficult situation

And the country's economic future is not looking very bright. Both the International Monetary Fund and World Bank estimate that its gross domestic product will shrink by about 10% in 2016.

Moreover, the IMF recently forecast that consumer-price inflation could hit 480% this year, and and climb to a mind-blowing 1,640% in 2017. According to the Misery Index, which adds the unemployment rate and the annual inflation rate of a given country together, this will likely once again make Venezuela the most "miserable" country in the world.

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"Perhaps no country in OPEC has suffered such a severe economic shock amid the collapse in oil prices as Venezuela," RBC Capital Markets' Helima Croft wrote back in February.

"Political challenges and mounting debt continue to stress an already challenging situation and there appears to be no end in sight," she added later in May.

Check out the full story at AFP.

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