KFC, the abbreviation for the popular chain restaurant Kentucky Fried Chicken, has a multitude of partnered and solo restaurants in many locations that are fairly well known by most individuals and families. With interesting and fun commercials airing constantly for their meal deals as well as with some backstory to the company and its mission, there’s a lot of known information about KFC.
However, there’s still plenty of interesting facts that have been hidden or aren’t known. Here are some things you didn’t know about KFC to give you some better knowledge of the chain.
Small Start
As you expected, there’s an interesting story behind the start of KFC and its food making. A man named Harland Sanders did in fact begin the chain, but it started in a part of a gas station as a café type eatery. Sanders opened it out of the gas station he worked at in Corbin, Kentucky, and named it Sanders Court and Café. It’s still a location for KFC to this day, but as a normal restaurant with a museum dedicated to the Colonel as well.
Honorary Title
Sanders actually has an honorary title of Colonel. He served as a mule-tender in the army before making his restaurant, but as the idea of KFC began to gain popularity and contribute heavily to the market it grabbed the attention of Kentucky’s governor. In 1935 after KFC had grown more, Kentucky’s current governor made Harland an honorary Colonel because of how much his idea had contributed to the state and its food.
Late Trends
Most of us recognize KFC for its family meals and deals on bigger amounts of fried chicken such as the paper buckets used for bucket meals. However, this didn’t come into existence until over 20 years after the first KFC restaurant was opened. A member of the first KFC franchises came up with the bucket meal, which was quite different then compared to now too. It had over a dozen pieces of chicken alongside 5 rolls and some gravy.
Worldwide Popularity
KFC has a major standing in the world nowadays, to the point it’s actually more popular in other countries compared to the United States sometimes. For example, Japan loves KFC and even has made it a tradition to eat from this restaurant. Japan is also where a bidder paid over $20 thousand for one of Colonel Sanders’ original suits. There’s an entire culture behind this restaurant for Japan.
Struggle For Recipe
Finding the recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken’s staple food is incredibly difficult because it is kept in a secret safe. Even workers don’t know the blend of spices it includes. Many people have made copycat versions over the years with some success as well as plenty of struggles. The closest version is made by Marion-Kay Spices called 99-X which is speculated to be the real deal or incredibly close due to the brand’s association with Sanders.
Whether you want to learn more about restaurants like KFC for personal reasons, to give background on your fast food surroundings, learn interesting facts about history, or for any other reason; this list can give you some insight. Chains like KFC are often rich in history and unique information or backstories because of how long they’ve been around as well as the journey it takes to get to the success and placements of so many restaurants.
There’s even more that can be added to this list, and there are also plenty of other fast food and chain restaurants that you can learn some of the facts behind too if you’re hungry for more info.