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ABC hosted a news nugget that I thought pertinent enough to discuss here. Apparently franchise owners of Kentucky Fried Chicken are suing their own cooperation for their relentless marketing of KFC’s grilled chicken. While other branches of fried chicken restaurants have been in the black this year without resorting to promoting healthier options, YUM cooperation’s ads are seen by franchise managers as detrimental to sales, forcing them to throw out crates of grilled chicken every day.
It seems a strange sort of backlash from the healthier-option movement that’s been rocking the fast food world. For years now fast food has been trying to adapt to public demand for healthier choices and less junk on our plastic trays. While I appreciate a lot of the effort put forth these days there’s an important question that fast food needs to ask itself: if it’s healthier, does that mean we’ll buy it? Apparently not.
Can we all agree on one thing off the bat? The healthiest food is prepared with good cuts of meat with minimum seasoning that’s cooked well and eaten shortly thereafter. I’m getting a little tired of this quasi-health food from food chains that should know better. If we’re talking business models, look at Popeye’s which is doing pretty well this year and hasn’t tried to sell us a thinner waistline. Although KFC’s grilled chicken may be healthier than its original recipe chicken, it’s all kind of relative. This is the chain that invented the “double-down,” for corn’s sake, right?
Let’s take two average chicken breasts from KFC, one fried and one grilled. (Here’s KFC’s nutrition chart.) While you’re getting only 190 calories with the grilled instead of 320, you’re still getting a whopping 550 mgs of sodium with it (instead of 710 mgs). There’s 0 trans fats, but that also goes for the fried chicken. It’s not health food, it’s healthier food. There’s also a very personal reason that I won’t eat grilled chicken from KFC, apart from the MSG. It tastes pretty bad.
If we take it for granted that ANY chicken from a fast food restaurant is bad for you and then let taste decide where to blow those $30 dollars for a family bucket, which would you opt for? As for me, I get fried chicken maybe four times a year. It’s been a tradition that we eat fried chicken every 4th of July and every Super Bowl. Once or twice a year we’ll be in the mood for it and swing by for a bucket. I get fried chicken because I want fried chicken. I don’t go because I want it grilled; my dad-in-law makes the best grilled chicken I’ve ever eaten, so why bother? I don’t have a fryer at home so I can’t make it myself–specifically because I don’t WANT a fryer at home. That way leads swiftly to madness. I get fried, I eat it, I’m happy. I don’t have to go back there for another 5-10 months. The end.
The problem is that we want the fast food companies to make healthier foods but the corporations who are listening to us (or pretending to listen) are doing it badly. The food is still not healthy enough to be good for anyone, and it tastes foul in the meantime. And it doesn’t sell. Franchisees are losing money and business. Fast food either needs to come up with better tasting food that is actually healthy (which given how much money they spend on the average serving is unlikely) or we need to stop buying our kids fast food. It’s time to fall back and regroup.
I plan to start by choosing when to take my family out for fast food. I only go out for it rarely so it doesn’t consume our lives. I control what goes into my kids’ stomach and I can teach them how to eat. When they get old enough to get their own meals, I will have taught them how important it is to eat healthy foods, get exercise and to make smart decisions. Fast food will be around forever, but the obesity problem in the US doesn’t have to be. By making our own decisions and not forcing chains to make them for us, we take back some of that control.
JeninCT // Aug 20, 2010 at 5:15 pm
I actually think you used to worst possibly example of a fast food restaurant here. People go to KFC for fried chicken. They make the best friend chicken, and good coleslaw, so people return for it regularly.
Other chains are offering better choices for healthier meals. Taco Bell has many low-fat offerings, and you can pull off a healthy meal at Micky D’s and Wendy’s.
How do I know this? I have two teenage boys with extremely busy schedules, so we regularly visit fast food restaurants. My personal favorite is the fruit and yogurt snack at McDonald’s. You should try it sometime.
Claude // Aug 20, 2010 at 10:02 pm
I’m not sure how much “public demand” there is for healthier fast food. Even Subway seems to have decided that that’s not a path for further growth. Fast food chains half-heartedly offer some lower calorie items just to deflect criticism. They don’t want to be the chief villains for anti-obesity campaigners.
sinz54 // Aug 20, 2010 at 10:08 pm
Claude: Fast food chains half-heartedly offer some lower calorie items just to deflect criticism.
Another reason they offer it, is so they can attract those groups of people who always seem to include one person who insists on healthy eating.
This way, four folks can dine out at McDonald’s, three of them on Big Macs and the fourth on a salad. If McDonald’s didn’t serve salads, then the four of them would have to eat elsewhere.
JeninCT // Aug 21, 2010 at 8:14 am
Sinz wrote:
“four folks can dine out at McDonald’s, three of them on Big Macs and the fourth on a salad. If McDonald’s didn’t serve salads, then the four of them would have to eat elsewhere.”
Bingo!
And to Monica: One thing to remember as a parent is that the lesson we intend to teach our kids isn’t always the lesson they learn. They have their own prism through which they will hear what you way.
ktward // Aug 21, 2010 at 4:22 pm
The healthiest food is prepared with good cuts of meat with minimum seasoning …
Minimum seasoning? How about minimum sodium, typically in the form of MSG or salt. Seasonings — i.e. herbs and spices — are quite healthy and good for us. Some are extraordinarily good for us.
It’s not health food, it’s healthier food.
No kidding.
There has never been any expectation from consumers nor their advocates that Fast Food be ‘healthiest’. Are you proposing our food options be ‘all or nothing’, Ms. Marier? Healthier is a huge step in the right direction, and completely driven by consumer demand. Considerably less calories and sodium content is a good thing in and of itself.
And btw, on the trans fats issue: KFC’s fried chicken was, until just a few years ago, loaded with trans fats. They changed their cooking oil in order to eliminate those nasty fats; the KFC fried that you indulge in today is markedly healthier than its long popular progenitor.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2006-10-29-kfc-transfat-usat_x.htm
———-
The marketing war between YUM and KFC Franchisees is better outlined here:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_34/b4192019553596.htm
Here’s the thing.
Expensive, comprehensive marketing campaigns the likes of ‘Unthink KFC’ (meant to aggressively promo their grilled product) are never conceived nor developed in a vacuum: tons of market research is conducted, consumer trends identified and analyzed, ethnologists are rescued from the dole.
Since I’m not privy to any of that considerable groundwork, and given the resultant in-house drama, I can only make a rough guess as to the nature of it:
- As an ostensibly forward-thinking company, YUM strives to appeal to consumers outside of KFC’s well-established — but potentially shrinking — base. Their built-in consumers aren’t much concerned with aspects beyond taste and price point, and YUM seeks to expand KFC’s consumer base by offering a healthier grilled option to the menu, marketed in tried-and-true guerrilla fashion.
That is smart, proactive biz. Except when …
- As the KFC Franchisees are boldly pointing out, YUM’s marketing strategy has completely left its loyal consumer base out in the cold. It’s understandable that some of this base may believe that KFC is out of the Fried biz. YUM’s mistake, and perhaps the explanation for their decline in sales.
IMHO, YUM needs to highlight the bottom line: it’s not about either/or (as Ms. Marier seems to suggest), it’s about options that expand their consumer base:
- KFC’s Fried product is considerably healthier today– no trans fats but same great taste. Base is happy.
- KFC has an even healthier, lower-cal/lower-sodium grilled option. Expand consumer base.
Sinz echoes this very message: it’s about options.
As to taste? Subjective.
I’ve not tried KFC’s re-formulated fried. But I am aware that they took the greatest of pains to maintain taste consistent with their original formulation, and since I never liked the original I’ve no reason to think I might like the new. Grilled? Ms. Marier makes a point, in that it’s easy to do at home. But many Fast Food consumers are not incapable of cooking, they’re simply in a serious time crunch– so a lower-sodium/lower-cal grilled option could have distinct appeal over the fried standard.
The only thing I ever personally eat from KFC is the Cole Slaw– and I have to admit, it’s delish.
ktward // Aug 21, 2010 at 5:44 pm
Ms. Marier. Let me make sure I have this right:
IYO, KFC should limit their product options (along with their ability to expand a potentially shrinking consumer base) because their marketing strategy is arguably miscalculated and because you, personally, prefer their [now healthier] reformulated fried product over their even healthier grilled?
JeninCT // Aug 21, 2010 at 8:33 pm
Ktward wrote:
“The only thing I ever personally eat from KFC is the Cole Slaw– and I have to admit, it’s delish.
I love their coleslaw. There’s a copycat recipe for it floating around the net that is amazingly close, and fantastic. Worth making!
The Fat Diaries: “Healthier” Fast Food? No Thanks « fast food combo // Aug 26, 2010 at 3:28 am
[...] here to see the original: The Fat Diaries: “Healthier” Fast Food? No Thanks tags: a-strange-sort, been-rocking, choices-and, fast food, healthier, less-junk, trays– [...]