The fast-food restaurant chain is experiencing difficulties in stocking a number of their branches due to a lack of HGV drivers amid a national shortage.

The restaurant chain has said that they were “working hard” to return the missing stock to their menu “as soon as possible.”

It is reported that the missing supplies include milkshakes and bottled drinks, which are now unavailable in all 1,250 of the company’s restaurants located across Scotland, England and Wales.

McDonald’s news follows disruptions reported by Nando’s, which had to shut around 50 outlets temporarily due to issues with supply of their peri-peri chicken.

Nando’s blamed the need to shutter outlets on staffing issues at its suppliers’ factories as well as the shortage of HGV lorry drivers that has resulted in gaps on supermarket shelves in recent weeks.

Since then, Logistics UK and the British Retail Consortium (BRC) have called on the government to review and reform current policy on HGV drivers, to tackle the worsening impact of driver shortages across the food supply chain.

With their letter to Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, the lobby groups called for better training for HGV drivers and a review of plans not to grant temporary work visas to drivers from the EU. The groups claimed that granting a temporary visa to EU drivers could encourage growth in driver numbers after an estimated 25,000 drivers returned to the EU due to Brexit and Covid-19.