KNOW ABOUT -
More
commonly known by its initials KFC is an American fast food restaurant chain
that specialized in fried chicken. Headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, It is
the World’s second-largest restaurant chain (as measured by sales after
McDonald’s, with almost 20,000 location globally in 123 countries and
territories as of December 2015. The chain is a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, a
restaurant company that also owns the Pizza Hut and Taco Bell chains.
KFC was
founded by Colonel Harland Sanders, an entrepreneur who began selling fried
chicken from his roadside restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky during the Great
Depression. Sanders identified the potential of the restaurant franchising
concept, and the first “Kentucky Fried Chicken in the fast food industry,
diversifying the market by challenging the established dominance of the
hamburger. By branding himself as “Colonel
Sanders”, Harland became a prominent figure of American cultural history,
and his image remains used in KFC advertising. However, the company’s rapid
expansion overwhelmed the again Sanders and he sold it to a group of investors
led by John Y. Brown, Jr. and Jack C. Massey in 1964.
KFC was one
of the first American fast food chains to expand internationally, opening
outlets in Canada, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Jamaica by the mid-1960s.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, it experienced mixed fortunes domestically, as
it went through a series of changes in corporate ownership with little or no
experience in the restaurant business. In the early-1970s, KFC was sold to the
spirits distributor Heublein, which was taken over by the R.J. Reynolds food
and tobacco conglomerate; that company sold the chain to Pepsico. The chain
continued to expand overseas, however, and in China. It has since expanded
rapidly in China, which is now the company’s single largest market. Pepsico
spun off its restaurants division as Tricon
Global Restaurants, which later changed its name to Yum! Brands.
KFC’s original product is pressure fried
chicken piece, seasoned with sanders’ recipe of 11 herbs and spices. The
constituents of the recipe represent a notable trade secret. Larger portions of
fried chicken are served in a cardboard “bucket”, which has become a well known
feature of the chain since it was first introduced by franchisee Pete Harman in
1957. Since the early 1990s, KFC has expanded its menu to offer other chicken
products such as chicken fillet burgers and wraps, as well as salads and side dishes, such as
French fries and coleslaw, desserts, and soft drinks, the latter often supplied
by Pepsico. KFC is known for its former and current slogan “Finger Lickin’
Good”, which was replaced by “Nobody does chicken like KFC” and “so good” in
the interim.
HISTORY OF KFC
Harland Sanders was born n 1890 and raised on a farm outside
Henryville, Indiana (near Louisville, Kentucky). When Sanders was five years
old, his father died, forcing his mother to work at a canning plant. This left
Sanders, as the eldest son, to care for his two younger siblings. After he
reached seven years of age, his mother taught him how to cook. After leaving
the family home at the age of 13, Sanders passed through several professions,
with mixed success. In 1930, he took over a Shellfilling station on US Route 25
just outside North Corbin, Kentucky, a small town on the edge of the
Appalachian Mountains. it was here that he
first served to travelers the recipes that he had learned as a child: fried chicken and other dishes
such as steaks and country ham. After four years of serving from his own dining
room table, Sanders purchased the larger filing station on the other side of
the road and expanded to six tables. By 1936, this had proven successful enough
for Sanders to be given the honorary title of Kentucky colonel by Governor Ruby
Laffoon. In 1937 he expanded his restaurant to 142 seats, and added a motel he
purchased across the street, naming it sanders court & Café. Sanders was
unhappy with the 35 minutes it took to
prepare his chicken in an iron frying pan, but he refused to deep fry the
chicken, which he believed lowered the quality of the product. If he pre-cooked
the chicken in advance of orders, there was sometimes wastage at day’s end. In
1939, the first commercial pressure cookers were released into the market,
mostly designed for steaming vegetables. Sanders bought one, and modified it
into a pressure fryer, which he then used to fry chicken. The new method
reduced production time to be comparable with deep frying, while in the opinion
of sanders, retaining the quality of pan-fried chicken. In July 1940, sanders
finalized what came to be known as his “Original Recipe” of 11 herbs and
spices. Although he never publicly revealed the recipe, he admitted to the use
of salt and pepper, and claimed that the ingredients “stand on everybody’s
shelf” After being re-commissioned as a Kentucky colonel in 1950 by Governor
Lawrence Wetherby, sanders began to dress the part, growing a goatee and
wearing a black frock coat (later switched to a white suit), a string tie, and
referring to himself as “Colonel”. His associates went along with the title
change, “jokingly at first and then in earnest”, according to biographer Josh
Ozersky. The Sanders Court & Café generally served travelers, so when the
route planned in 1955 for interstate 75 bypassed Corbin, sanders sold his
properties and traveled the US to franchise his chicken recipe to restaurant
owners. Independent restaurant would pay four (later five) cents on each
chicken as a franchise fee, in exchange for sanders’ “secret blend of herbs and
species” and the right to feature his recipe on their menus and use his name
and likeness for promotional purposes. In 1952 he had already successfully
franchised his recipe to his friend Pete Harman of south salt Lake, Utah, the
operator of one of the city’s largest restaurants. Don Anderson, a sign painter
hired by Harman, coined the name “Kentucky was exotic and evoked imagery of
Southern hospitality. Harman trademarked the phrase “its finger lickin’ good”,
bucked meal” in 1957 (14 pieces of chicken, five bread rolls and a pint of
gravy in a cardboard bucket). Serving their signature meal in a paper bucket
was to become an iconic feature of the company.
Comments
Post a Comment