3848. Chuckie KFC Mascot

KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) is a global chain of fried chicken fast food restaurants with its operational headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky in the United States. It was developed and built by Colonel Harland Sanders, who began selling fried chicken from his roadside restaurant in 1930. Sanders was an early pioneer of the restaurant franchise concept, with the first "Kentucky Fried Chicken" franchise opening in Utah in 1952. Sanders era KFC managers would later go on to found the Wendy's and Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken restaurant chains. Sanders sold the company to a group of investors in 1964, although he continued to act as its goodwill ambassador until his death in 1980. His image remains an important part of the company's branding and advertisements, and he is often referred to simply as "The Colonel". KFC primarily sells fried chicken pieces and variations such as chicken burgers and wraps, as well as side dishes such as french fries and coleslaw, desserts and soft drinks, predominantly from PepsiCo. As of 2011, there were over 17,000 KFC outlets in 105 countries and territories, making it the second largest restaurant chain in the world after McDonald's. Half of its total outlets are situated in either the United States or China. In 1971, Kentucky Fried Chicken was sold to Heublein for $285 million who were taken over by R.J. Reynolds in 1982, who sold the chain to PepsiCo for $850 million in 1986. PepsiCo spun off its restaurants division as Tricon Global Restaurants in 1997, which subsequently changed its name to Yum! Brands in 2002. As a Yum! subsidiary KFC is a core component of one of the largest restaurant companies in the world. Eric Schlosser’s book Fast Food Nation (2002) and Morgan Spurlock's film Super Size Me (2004) were two prominent critiques of fast food and its consequences. KFC has been especially hard hit by negative publicity as the target for much of PETA's anti animal cruelty campaigning, and has been criticised for alleged environmental damage. Health campaigners influenced a change to a healthier frying oil in many regions. 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 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. 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, 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 rose from $100,000 ($875,188 in 2012 dollars) to $365,000 ($3,170,597 in 2012 dollars), 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 seemed special and unique. 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 first suggested that Sanders 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.