Introduction: History

Introduction: KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) is a fast food restaurant chain headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, which specializes in fried chicken. An "American icon", it is the world's largest fried chicken chain and the second largest restaurant chain overall after McDonald's, with over 17,000 outlets in 105 countries and territories as of December 2011. KFC was founded by Harland Sanders, who began selling fried chicken from his roadside restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky during the Great Depression. Sanders was an early pioneer of the restaurant franchising concept, with the first "Kentucky Fried Chicken" franchise opening in Utah in the early 1950s. Its rapid expansion saw it grow too large for Sanders to manage, and he eventually sold the company to a group of investors. Despite this, his image was still used as branding (as "Colonel Sanders"; Sanders had been made a Kentucky colonel after the success of his initial restaurant), and he worked as a goodwill ambassador for the company until shortly before his death. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, KFC had mixed success at home as it went through a series of corporate owners who had little or no experience in the restaurant business, although it continued to expand in overseas markets. In the early 1970s, KFC was sold to the spirits firm Heublein, who were taken over by the R.J. Reynolds conglomerate, who sold the chain to PepsiCo. PepsiCo spun off its restaurants division (also including Pizza Hut and Taco Bell), as Tricon Global Restaurants, which later changed its name to Yum! Brands. KFC has been the target of an ongoing campaign by the animal rights organization PETA, although KFC executives have protested that the chain is unfairly singled out for criticism. The chain has also been accused by Greenpeace with contributing to the destruction of the world's rainforests with unsustainably sourced cardboard and paper packaging. History: a) Origin: Born and raised in Henryville, Indiana, Harlan Sanders passed through several professions in his lifetime, with mixed success. Sanders first served his fried chicken in 1930 in the midst of the Great Depression at a gas station he owned in North Corbin, a small city on the edge of the Appalachian Mountains in south eastern Kentucky. The dining area was named Sanders Court & Café and was successful enough for Sanders to be given the honorary title of Kentucky Colonel in 1936 by the Kentucky Governor Ruby Laffoon. The following year Sanders expanded his restaurant to 142 seats, and added a motel he purchased across the street. When Sanders prepared his chicken in his original restaurant in North Corbin, he prepared the chicken in an iron frying pan, 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. Not only did production speeds increase but the method produced flakier, moister chicken. Between 1939 and 1940 Sanders devised what came to be known as his Original Recipe of 11 herbs and spices. b) Franchising: 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 his friend Pete Harman in South Salt Lake, Utah, the operator of one of the city's largest restaurants; together, they opened the first "Kentucky Fried Chicken" outlet in 1952. The restaurant's sales in the first year more than tripled, with 75 per cent of the increase from fried chicken sales. For Harman, the addition of fried chicken was a way of differentiating his restaurant from his competitors; in Utah, a product hailing from Kentucky was unique, which made it seem special. A sign painter hired by Harman coined the name "Kentucky Fried Chicken". Harman produced the company's first training manual and product guide. He also trademarked the phrase that would become the company's slogan, "It's finger lickin' good". It was Harman who in 1957 first bundled 14 pieces of chicken, five rolls and a pint of gravy in a paper bucket to offer families "a complete meal" for $3.50 ($29 in 2012 dollars). He says he took on the project as a favor to Sanders, who had called on behalf of a Denver franchisee who didn't know what to do with the 500 buckets he had bought from a traveling salesman. At the time Harman sold his first bucket meals, the chain was little more than a network of independent restaurants that paid pennies per order for Sanders' "secret blend of herbs and spices" and the right to feature his recipe chicken on their menus and use his name and likeness for promotional purposes. The popularity of the bucket meals ultimately made it feasible to open free-standing KFC restaurants, according to Harman, "by giving you enough volume to justify a manager and pay the overhead". Freestanding stores led to a faster growth rate for the chain because those specialized operations proved easier to sell to would-be franchisees. An early franchisee from 1962 was Dave Thomas, who created the rotating bucket sign that came to be used at most KFC locations in the US. Thomas encouraged Sanders to appear in the KFC television commercials, helped him to simplify the chain's menu of over 100 items to just fried chicken and salads, and was an early advocate of the take-out concept that Pete Harman had pioneered. Thomas sold his shares in 1968, becoming a millionaire in the process, and went on to found the Wendy's restaurant chain. c) Sale and rebranding: By 1964, Kentucky Fried Chicken was sold in over 600 franchised outlets in both the United States and Canada. Sanders sold the entire KFC franchising operation in 1964 for $2 million ($14,987,124 in 2012 dollars), payable over time at a three per cent interest rate, to a group of investors headed by John Y. Brown, Jr and Jack C. Massey. The sale included a lifetime salary and the agreement that he would be the company's quality controller and trademark. According to Massey, when the offer was first touted to Sanders it was difficult to know how he felt about the deal: he would dismiss it one day and talk about it as if it were inevitable the next.[19] Massey knew that Sanders believed in astrology and waited until Sanders had a particularly positive and dramatic horoscope before making a definitive offer. Massey went into Sanders' office and made him a written offer. Sanders looked at the figure, opened up his drawer, read his horoscope, and agreed to sell it. Sanders apparently became disenchanted with the deal, telling the Washington Post, "I don't like some of the things John Y. done to me. Let the record speak for itself. He over-persuaded me to get out". Massey and Brown changed the restaurant's format from the diner-style restaurant envisioned by Sanders to a standalone fast-food take-out model. Giving all their restaurants a distinct red-and-white striped color pattern, the group opened over 1,500 restaurants, including locations in all 50 U.S. states and several international locations. The concept caught on because it was the best chicken most people had ever tasted and took a dish that had been a Sunday dinner treat and made it an everyday staple. Massey and Sanders did not like each other, and the Colonel grew incensed when Massey decreed that company headquarters would be in Nashville, Tennessee, and not in Kentucky. He bellowed, "This ain't no goddam Tennessee Fried Chicken, no matter what some slick, silk-suited sonofabitch says". Brown did not like the idea either, but Massey owned 60 per cent of the company, and Brown 40 per cent, and Massey wanted company headquarters to be near his home. Brown claims that he brought order and efficiency to a chaotic management structure, and treated the increasingly disgruntled Sanders with tact and patience. The outburst prompted a KFC franchisee in Bowling Green, Kentucky to unsuccessfully attempt to sue Sanders for libel.[31] In 1973 Heublein attempted to sue Sanders after he opened a restaurant in Shelbyville, Kentucky under the name of "Claudia Sanders, the Colonel's Lady Dinner House".[32] In 1974 Sanders counter-sued Heublein Inc for $122 million ($574,931,174 in 2012 dollars) over the alleged misuse of his image in promoting products he had not helped develop, and for hindering his ability to franchise restaurants. A Heublein spokesman described it as a "nuisance suit". In 1975 Heublein settled out of court with Sanders for $1 million ($4,319,109 in 2012 dollars), continued his salary as goodwill ambassador and allowed his restaurant venture to go forward as "Claudia Sanders Dinner House". d) Recent events From the turn of the twenty first century, fast food was extensively criticized for its animal welfare record, its links to obesity and its environmental consequences. Eric Schlosser's book Fast Food Nation (2002) and Morgan Spurlock's film Super Size Me (2004) reflected these concerns. Since 2003, the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), have been protesting KFC's treatment of the animals used for its products with the Kentucky Fried Cruelty campaign. PETA states that they have held more than 12,000 demonstrations at KFC outlets since 2003 because of alleged mistreatment of chickens by KFC suppliers.

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