KFC

KFC Corporation (KFC), founded and also known as Kentucky Fried Chicken, is a chain of fast food
restaurants based in Louisville,Kentucky, in the United States. KFC has been a brand and operating
segment, termed a concept of Yum! Brands since 1997 when that company was spun off
from PepsiCo as Tricon Global Restaurants Inc.
KFC primarily sells chicken pieces, wraps, salads and sandwiches. While its primary focus is fried
chicken, KFC also offers a line of grilled and roasted chicken products, side dishes and desserts.
Outside North America, KFC offers beef based products such as hamburgers or kebabs, pork based
products such as ribs and other regional fare.
The company was founded as Kentucky Fried Chicken by Colonel Harland Sanders in 1952, though the
idea of KFC's fried chicken actually goes back to 1930. Although Sanders died in 1980, he remains an
important part of the company's branding and advertisements, and "Colonel Sanders" or "The Colonel" is
a metonym for the company itself. The company adopted KFC, an abbreviated form of its name, in
1991. Starting in April 2007, the company began using its original name, Kentucky Fried Chicken, for its
signage, packaging and advertisements in the U.S. as part of a new corporate re-branding
program;newer and remodeled restaurants will have the new logo and name while older stores will
continue to use the 1980s signage. Additionally, Yum! continues to use the abbreviated name freely in its
advertising.

HISTORY
Born and raised in Henryville, Indiana, Sanders passed through several professions in his
lifetime. Sanders first served his fried chicken in 1930 in the midst of the Great Depression at a gas
station he owned in North Corbin, Kentucky. The dining area was named Sanders Court & Café and was
so successful that in 1936 Kentucky Governor Ruby Laffoon granted Sanders the title of
honorary Kentucky Colonel in recognition of his contribution to the state's cuisine. The following year
Sanders expanded his restaurant to 142 seats, and added a motel he bought across the street. When
Sanders prepared his chicken in his original restaurant in North Corbin, he prepared the chicken in an
iron skillet, which took about 30 minutes to do, too long for a restaurant operation. In 1939, Sanders
altered the cooking process for his fried chicken to use a pressure fryer, resulting in a greatly reduced
cooking time comparable to that of deep frying. In 1940 Sanders devised what came to be known as
his Original Recipe.
The Sanders Court & Café generally served travelers, often those headed to Florida, so when the route
planned in the 1950s for what would become Interstate 75 bypassed Corbin, he sold his properties and
traveled the U.S. to sell his chicken to restaurant owners. The first to take him up on the offer was Pete
Harman in South Salt Lake, Utah; together, they opened the first "Kentucky Fried Chicken" outlet in
1952.By the early 1960s, Kentucky Fried Chicken was sold in over 600 franchised outlets in both the
United States and Canada. One of the longest-lived franchisees of the older Col. Sanders' chicken
concept, as opposed to the KFC chain, was the Kenny Kings chain. The company owned many Northern
Ohio diner-style restaurants, the last of which closed in 2004.
Sanders sold the entire KFC franchising operation in 1964 for $2 million USD, equal to $14,161,464
today. Since that time, the chain has been sold three more times: to Heublein in 1971, to R.J. Reynolds in
1982 and most recently to PepsiCo in 1986, which made it part of itsTricon Global Restaurants division,
which in turn was spun off in 1997, and has now been renamed to Yum! Brands.
In 2001, KFC started test in Austin, Texas restaurants of "Wing Works" chicken wing line sold with one of
a few flavored sauces. Also, KFC hired a consultant to develop a breakfast menu.
Additionally, Colonel Sanders' nephew, Lee Cummings, took his own Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises
(and a chicken recipe of his own) and converted them to his own "spin-off"restaurant chain, Lee's Famous
Recipe Chicken.
Today, some of the older KFC restaurants have become famous in their own right. One such restaurant is
located in Marietta, Georgia. This store is notable for a 56-foot (17 m) tall sign that looks like a chicken.
The sign, known locally as the Big Chicken, was built for an earlier fast-food restaurant on the site called
Johnny Reb's Chick, Chuck and Shake. It is often used as a travel reference point in the Atlanta area by
locals and pilots.

THE SECRET RECIPE

The Colonel's secret flavor recipe of 11 herbs and spices that creates the famous "finger lickin' good"
chicken remains a trade secret.Portions of the secret spice mix are made at different locations in the
United States, and the only complete, handwritten copy of the recipe is kept in a vault in corporate
headquarters.
On September 9, 2008, the one complete copy was temporarily moved to an undisclosed location under
extremely tight security while KFC revamped the security at its headquarters. Before the move, KFC
disclosed that the recipe, which includes exact amounts of each component, is written in pencil on a
single sheet of notebook paper and signed by Sanders.It was locked in a filing cabinet with two separate
combination locks. The cabinet also included vials of each of the 11 herbs and spices used. Only two
unnamed executives had access to the recipe at any one time. One of the two executives said that no
one had come close to guessing the contents of the secret recipe, and added that the actual recipe would
include some surprises. On February 9, 2009, the secret recipe returned to KFC's Louisville headquarters
in a more secure, computerized vault guarded by motion detectors andsecurity cameras. Reportedly, the
paper has yellowed and the handwriting is now faint.
In 1983, writer William Poundstone examined the recipe in his book Big Secrets. He reviewed
Sanders' patent application, and advertised in college newspapers for present or former employees
willing to share their knowledge. From the former he deduced that Sanders had diverged from other
common fried-chicken recipes by varying the amount of oil used with the amount of chicken being
cooked, and starting the cooking at a higher temperature (about 400 °F (200 °C)) for the first minute or so
and then lowering it to 250 °F (120 °C) for the remainder of the cooking time. Several of Poundstone's
contacts also provided samples of the seasoning mix, and a food lab found that it consisted solely
of sugar, flour, salt, black pepper and monosodium glutamate (MSG). He concluded that it was entirely
possible that, in the years since Sanders sold the chain, later owners had begun skimping on the recipe
to save costs.

PRODUCTS
Packaging
The famous paper bucket that KFC uses for its larger sized orders of chicken and has come to signify the
company was originally created by Wendy's restaurants founder Dave Thomas. Thomas was originally a
franchisee of the original Kentucky Fried Chicken and operated several outlets in the Columbus,
Ohio area. His reasoning behind using the paper packaging was that it helped keep the chicken crispy
by wicking away excess moisture. Thomas was also responsible for the creation of the famous rotating
bucket sign that came to be used at most KFC locations in the US.

Menu items
This is a list of menu items sold at KFC.

Chicken
 KFC's specialty is fried chicken served in various forms. KFC's primary product is pressure-
fried pieces of chicken made with the original recipe. The other chicken offering, extra crispy, is made
using a garlic marinade and double dipping the chicken in flour before deep frying in a standard
industrial kitchen type machine.
 Kentucky Grilled Chicken – This marinated grilled chicken is targeted towards health-conscious
customers. It features marinated breasts, thighs, drumsticks, and wings that are coated with
seasonings before being grilled. It has less fat, calories, and sodium than the Original Recipe fried
chicken.Introduced in April 2009.
 KFC has two lines of sandwiches: its "regular" chicken sandwiches and its Snackers line. The regular
sandwiches are served on either a sesame seed or corn dusted roll and are made from either whole
breast fillets (fried or roasted), chopped chicken in a sauce or fried chicken strips. The Snackers line
are value priced items that consist of chicken strips and various toppings. In
 the UK, Australia and New Zealand, sandwiches are referred to as "burgers"; there is the chicken fillet
burger (a chicken breast fillet coated in an original-recipe coating with salad garnish and mayonnaise)
and a Zinger Burger (as with the former but with a spicier coating and salsa). Both of these are
available as "tower" variants, which include a slice of cheese and a hash brown.
 KFC considers its Double Down product a sandwich in spite of containing no bread.
 A variety of smaller finger food products are available at KFC including chicken strips, wings, nuggets
and popcorn chicken. These products can be ordered plain or with various sauces, including several
types of barbecue sauces and buffalo sauce. They also offer potato wedges.
 Several pies have been made available from KFC. The Pot Pie is a savory pie made with chicken,
gravy and vegetables. In the second quarter of 2006, KFC introduced its variation onShepherd's
pie called the Famous Bowl. Served in a plastic bowl, it is layered with mashed potatoes
or rice, gravy, corn, popcorn chicken, and cheese, and is served with a biscuit. The bowl had been
available at KFC's special test market store in Louisville since the third quarter of 2005.
 The KFC Twister is a wrap that consists of either chicken strips or roasted chicken, tomato, lettuce
and (pepper) mayonnaise wrapped in a tortilla. In Europe, the Twister is sold in two varieties: 1) the
Grilled Twister (chicken strips),and 2) the Grilled Mexican twister/Spicy Toasted Twister (UK) (chicken
breast supplemented by tortilla chips and salsa, UK: adds only salsa to pepper mayonnaise).
 KFC Fillers are a 9 in (23 cm) sub, available in four varieties over the summer period in Australia.
 Shish kebab – in several markets KFC sells kebabs.
 Kentucky Barbecued Chicken – barbecued chicken dipped in the original recipe
 Wrapstar is a variant of the KFC Twister, consisting of chicken strips with salsa, cheese, salad,
pepper mayonnaise and other ingredients, contained in a compressed tortilla.

OTHER PRODUCTS
 In some international locations, KFC may sell hamburgers, pork ribs or fish. In the U.S., KFC began
offering the Fish Snacker sandwich during Lent in 2006. The Fish Snacker consists of a rectangular
patty of Alaskan Pollock on a small bun, and is the fifth KFC menu item in the Snacker category.
 Some international locations also may sell KFC 'Mashies' - balls of mashed potato cooked in original
recipe batter.
 Three types of salads (which can be topped with roasted or fried chicken) are available at KFC:
Caesar, house, and BLT salads (in the US).
 The Boneless Banquet
 Zinger Burger – A regular sized burger which regularly consists of a boneless fillet of hot and spicy
chicken, lettuce and mayonnaise in a burger bun. Cheese, tomato, bacon and pineapple can be
added upon request. Barbecue sauce can also replace/join the mayonnaise.
 Chili Cheese Fried – By 2007, 2 former KFC/A&W Restaurants locations in Berlin and Cologne,
Germany had reverted to KFC-only locations and the third location in Garbsen (by Hannover) was
closed in 2005. The only remnant from the former A&W menu are the Chili Cheese Fries which were
added to the systemwide KFC Germany menu.
 Parfait desserts – "Little Bucket Parfaits" in varieties such as Fudge Brownie, Chocolate Crème (once
called the Colonel's Little Fudge Bucket), Lemon Crème and Strawberry Shortcake are available at
most locations in the US.
 Sara Lee Desserts – Available in either Cookies and Cream Cheesecake or Choc Caramel Mousse.
 Krushers, available in Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. These are drinks containing "real
bits". They include "classic krushers", "smoothie krushers" and "fruit krushers". Selected outlets are
now equipped with "Krushbars" to serve these drinks.

Sides
 Other than fried chicken, many KFC restaurants serve side dishes like coleslaw, various potato-based
items (including potato wedges, french fries and mashed potatoes with gravy),biscuits, baked
beans, macaroni and cheese, macaroni salad, rice, steamed vegetables and corn on the cob.

Discontinued products
 The Colonel's Rotisserie Gold – This product was introduced in the 1990s as a response to
the Boston Market chain's roasted chicken products, and a healthier mindset of the general public
avoiding fried food. Purportedly made from a "lost" Col. Sanders recipe, it was sold as a whole
roaster or a half bird.
 Tender Roast Chicken – This product was an offshoot of "The Colonel's Rotisserie Gold". Instead of
whole and half birds, customers were given quarter roasted chicken pieces. For a time, customers
could request chicken "original", "Extra Tasty Crispy", or "Tender Roast".
 Chicken Little sandwich – a value oriented sandwich that sold for US$0.39 in the U.S. during the late
1980s and early 1990s. It was a small chicken patty with mayonnaise on a small roll, similar to White
Castle's mini chicken sandwich.
 Extra Tasty Crispy (ETC) – Chicken much like the Extra Crispy served today, except ETC was
prepared using chicken that had been soaking for 15 minutes in a special marinade machine. There
is some speculation that the marinade may have been made with trans-fats, and KFC confesses to
no longer use trans-fats in their chicken, the known ingredients were garlic and chicken stock. In the
summer of 2007, KFC started marketing the chicken just as "Extra Crispy" without the marinade.
 Kentucky Nuggets were a chicken nugget product available at KFC from December 1984 until 1996.
No reason has been given for their discontinuation. It is still sold in Australia.
 Smokey Chipotle – Introduced in April 2008. The chicken was dipped in chipotle sauce then doubled
breaded and fried. It has been discontinued since August 2008.

Nutritional value
KFC formerly used partially hydrogenated oil in its fried foods. This oil contains relatively high levels
of trans fat, which increases the risk of heart disease. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI)
filed a court case against KFC, with the aim of making it use other types of oils or make sure customers
know about trans fat content immediately before they buy food.
In October 2006, KFC announced that it would begin frying its chicken in trans fat-free oil. This would also
apply to their potato wedges and other fried foods, however, the biscuits,macaroni and cheese, and
mashed potatoes would still contain trans fat. Trans fat-free soybean oil was introduced in all KFC
restaurants in the U.S. by April 30, 2007. CSPI announced that it would immediately drop its lawsuit
against KFC and was hopeful that this would create a ripple effect on other restaurants or fast food chains
that prepare food rich in trans fat. "If KFC, which deep-fries almost everything, can get the artificial trans
fat out of its frying oil, anyone can," CSPI executive director Michael Jacobson said in a statement.

ADVERTISING
Despite his death in 1980, Sanders remains a key symbol of the company in its advertising and branding.
Early television advertisements for KFC regularly featured Sanders licking his fingers and talking to the
viewer about his secret recipe, and by the 1960s both the Colonel and the chain's striped bucket had
become well-known. The bucket as product placement can be seen in the hands of both Annette
Funicello and Dwayne Hickman in 1965's How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, and was also featured prominently in
the 1968 Peter Sellers vehicle, The Party. KFC itself was featured in 1980's Superman II. The Colonel
made appearances as himself in Jerry Lewis's The Big Mouth (1967), Herschell Gordon Lewis' Blast-Off
Girls (1967) and Al Adamson's Hell's Bloody Devils (1970), as well as an appearance in 1968 on Rowan
& Martin's Laugh-In.
Before he became a platinum-selling pop star in the 1970s, Barry Manilow sang the commercial jingle
"Get a Bucket of Chicken", which was later included on Barry Manilow Live as part of "A Very Strange
Medley."
Throughout the mid 1980s, KFC called on Will Vinton Studios to produce a series of
humorous, claymation ads. These most often featured a cartoon-like chicken illustrating the poor food
quality of competing food chains, mentioning prolonged freezing and other negative aspects.TV ads also
featured Foghorn Leghorn advising Henry Hawk to visit the restaurant for better chicken.
In the 1980s, KFC was an associate sponsor for Junior Johnson's NASCAR Winston Cup Series cars,
with such drivers as Darrell Waltrip, Neil Bonnett, and Terry Labonte.
A 1982 episode of Little House on the Prairie titled "Wave of the Future" featured a character presumed to
be Col. Sanders offering Harriet Oleson a fried chicken franchise (perhaps a subliminal advertisement for
KFC), but his character was credited as "Bearded Man" for legal reasons. This sub plot was an
anacrhonism as Sanders had not yet been born at the time the episode was set (the late 19th century).
In 1997, KFC briefly re-entered the NASCAR Winston Cup Series as sponsor of the #26 Darrell Waltrip
Motorsports Chevrolet with driver Rich Bickle at the Brickyard 400.
By the late 1990s, the stylized likeness of Colonel Sanders as the KFC logo had been modified. KFC ads
began featuring an animated version of "the Colonel" voiced by Randy Quaid with a lively and
enthusiastic attitude. He would often start out saying "The Colonel here!" and moved across the screen
with a cane in hand. The Colonel was often shown dancing, singing, and knocking on the TV screen as
he spoke to the viewer about the product.
The animated Colonel is uncommon today. Still using a humorous slant, the current KFC campaign
revolves mostly around customers enjoying the food. It also features a modified version of Lynyrd
Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" as the theme song for practically all its commercials, though the
restaurant actually hails from Kentucky.
In 2006, KFC claimed to have made the first logo visible from outer space, though Readymix has had one
since 1965. KFC says "It marked the official debut of a massive global re-image campaign that will
contemporize 14,000-plus KFC restaurants in over 80 countries over the next few years." The logo was
built from 65,000 one-foot-square tiles, and it took six days on site to construct in early November. The
logo was placed in the Mojave Desert near Rachel, Nevada. It is located in the northern section
of Rachel, Nevada
Many KFC locations are co-located with one or more of Yum! Brands restaurants, Long John
Silver's, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, or A&W Restaurants. Many of these locations behave like a single
restaurant, offering a single menu with food items from both restaurants.
One of KFC's latest advertisements is a commercial advertising its "wicked crunch box meal". The
commercial features a fictional black metalband called "Hellvetica" performing live, the lead singer then
swallows fire. The commercial then shows the lead singer at a KFC eating the "wicked crunch box meal"
and saying "Oh man that is hot".
In 2007, the original, non-acronymic Kentucky Fried Chicken name was resurrected and began to
reappear on company marketing literature and food packaging, as well as some restaurant signage.
In 2010, an advertisement was shown in Australia showing an Australian cricket fan giving West Indies
fans KFC chicken to keep them quiet. The ad sparked a debate over racism in the ad, suggesting that all
black people eat fried chicken. Fried chicken was eaten by black slaves because it was cheap and easy
to make. Though KFC stated that it was "misinterpreted by a segment of people in the US", the ad was
later pulled from TV. However, several Australian commentators have expressed the opinion that the ad
is not racist, because this is not a racial stereotype in Australia and the cricket fans in the ad are not
African American, but West Indies cricket supporters (the West Indies cricket team was playing a Test
cricket series against the Australian cricket team at the time of the ad).
Also in 2010, Yum! signed a naming rights deal with the Louisville Arena Authority for Louisville's new
downtown arena, which opened on October 10 of that year as the KFC Yum! Center.

CRITICISM
Environmental concerns
KFC in the US has been accused by Greenpeace of a large destruction of the Amazon Rainforest,
because the supply of soy used for chicken food that KFC receives from Cargill has been traced back to
the European KFC. Cargill has reportedly been exporting soy illegally for several
years. The Greenpeace organization researched the issue and brought it to the attention of the parent
company YUM! Brands, Inc. The parent company denied the illegal operation, and said that their supply
of soy is grown in parts of Brazil. Greenpeace has called on KFC to stop purchasing soy from Cargill, to
avoid contributing to the destruction of the Amazon.

Trademark disputes
In 1971, Sanders sued Heublein Inc., KFC's parent company at the time, over the alleged misuse of his
image in promoting products he had not helped develop. In 1975, Heublein Inc. unsuccessfully sued
Sanders for libel after he publicly referred to their gravy as "sludge" with a "wallpaper taste".
In May 2007, KFC (Great Britain) requested that Tan Hill Inn, in the Yorkshire Dales, North Yorkshire, UK
refrain from using the term 'Family Feast' to describe its Christmas menu,although this problem was
quickly resolved with the pub being allowed to continue use of the term.

Wages and working conditions

In New Zealand, KFC youth workers earn NZ$10.13 an hour. Staff at the Balmoral, Auckland store went
on strike for two hours on December 3, 2005 after Restaurant Brands, the franchise holder, offered no
wage increase in contract negotiations. In March 2006, Restaurant Brands agreed to phase out youth
rates in New Zealand, although no date was set.
Many stores in western Canada are unionized with the Canadian Auto Workers, and as a result many
non-franchise stores in western Canada pay higher than minimum wage.

ANIMAL RIGHTS
Since 2003, animal rights and welfare organizations, led by People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals (PETA), have been protesting KFC’s treatment of the animals used for its products. These
groups claim that the recommendations of the KFC Animal Welfare Advisory Council have been
ignored. Adele Douglass, a former member of the council, said in an SEC filing reported on by
the Chicago Times, that KFC "never had any meetings. They never asked any advice, and then they
touted to the press that they had this animal-welfare advisory committee. I felt like I was being used."
KFC responded by saying the chickens used in its products are bought from suppliers like Perdue
Farms, Tyson Foods, and Pilgrim's Pride, and that these suppliers are routinely monitored for animal
welfare violations. Several PETA undercover investigations and videos of these and other KFC suppliers
purporting to show chickens being beaten, ripped apart, and thrown against walls contradict KFC’s
claims. PETA has criticised some of the practices of chicken breeders, such as beak trimming and
overcrowding, but KFC says its suppliers meets UK legal requirements. The Department for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs recommends a maximum stocking density of 34 kg—around 30 chickens—per
square metre, and say that in circumstances where beak trimming needs to be carried out to prevent the
birds injuring each other, only one third of the beak should be trimmed "measured from the tip towards the
entrance of the nostrils". PETA states that they have held more than 12,000 demonstrations at KFC
outlets since 2003 because of this alleged mistreatment of chickens by KFC suppliers.
In June 2008, KFC Canada agreed to PETA's demands for better welfare standards, including favoring
suppliers who use controlled-atmosphere killing (CAK) of chickens, and other welfare standards as well
as introducing a vegan sandwich at 65% of its outlets. PETA has called off its campaign against KFC
Canada, but continues to demonstrate against KFC elsewhere in the world.

Hygiene
•In February 2007, a KFC/Taco Bell outlet in New York City was found to be rat infested. A video showing
the rats running wild inside the restaurant was shown on television news bulletins around the world, as
well as disseminated on the internet via sites such as YouTube.
•Two KFC outlets in Sydney, Australia, were fined record amounts in 2009 for having unhygienic food
preparation areas. Inspectors found layers of grease and dirt, as well as evidence of vermin. The KFC
stores had been repeat offenders, and had ignored previous warnings to keep their restaurants clean.
They were charged with 11 breaches of food hygiene laws.
•In 2009, a KFC outlet in Leicester Square, London was charged with 13 food hygiene charges by officials
from Westminster Council, claiming a mouse was seen running across the floor and flies buzzed around
their heads at the premises.
•A court case in August 2010 revealed poor hygiene at a KFC outlet in the suburb of Villawood in Sydney,
Australia. KFC staff admitted to the court that they would drop cooked chicken pieces on the floor, and
indulge in food fights using french fries and chicken pieces. The court was told that staff did not wash
their hands between handling raw chicken blood, and serving cooked chicken pieces to customers. An
11-year-old girl launched legal action against the KFC outlet, claiming she caught salmonellosis after
eating a Twister at the store, which she says left her with brain damage and quadriplegia. KFC denied the
girl's illness was caused by its food.