In order to capture current consumers, KFC has promoted boneless chicken dishes as its core product, expanded its dipping sauce categories, and redesigned its store space to enhance the attractiveness of customers' in-store experience. Nowadays, the competition pressure of Yum Brands' chain brand has increased sharply. On the one hand, various emerging chicken fast food brands are constantly emerging. On the other hand, established catering giants such as McDonald's are also betting on the growth track of global chicken consumption. Although KFC claims to have created the chicken fast food category, the pioneer is not the industry leader, especially in the US market, where its sales have continued to decline in recent years.
KFC Global CEO Scott Mezwinski issued a statement on Monday announcing a "new chapter" plan for brand development: "Competition in the chicken fast food track is becoming increasingly saturated, and we have a clear opportunity to set a new industry standard for modern chicken fast food."
Boneless chicken tenders and new drinks
The customer holds a boneless chicken fillet with dipping sauce and a KFC drink, simulating a selfie to check in.
The core of KFC's "New Chapter" strategy focuses on boneless chicken products, with improved classic boneless chicken tenders as the key upgraded item. Image source: KFC
At the heart of the strategy is what KFC calls "a drastic menu overhaul."
The brand plans to expand the entire line of boneless chicken categories and simultaneously optimize the existing chicken fillet formula.
Christophe Poirier, KFC's chief product concept officer, said in an interview: "Our product focus is continuing to shift from bone-in chicken to boneless chicken."
"We have comprehensively upgraded our chicken tenders products and set rigid standards: to achieve the largest portion, the juiciest, and the crispiest skin."
At the same time, the brand has greatly expanded its dipping sauce options to meet consumers' eating habits of dipping and pouring chicken tenders. KFC’s global sauce library features more than 20 sauces, blending classic flavors with innovative flavors like South American Green Herb Ranch Sauce.
Saucy, an independent sub-store specializing in chicken tenders and dipping sauces, has expanded to nearly ten stores, all of which are located in Florida.
This month, stores in the UK and Ireland will be the first to launch the new chicken tenders and nine new dipping sauces; stores in Australia and the United States will follow later this summer; more markets around the world will be launched this year.
KFC simultaneously launched a new product line called "Dunked (Thick Sauce Series)", which features chicken tenders, chicken wings and burgers covered in rich sauce. This series has been launched in stores in South Africa and India.
Like most fast food brands, KFC expanded its beverage matrix and launched a new beverage sub-brandKwench by KFC, products include pearl refreshing drinks, sparkling lemonade, and iced coffee. Some stores in Ireland and the UK have already started selling it, and this year Australia and Canada will include the series in their permanent menus.
Poirier said that relying on the flexible global supply chain, the headquarters can quickly synchronize mature innovative solutions to markets around the world.
The store image will also be completely refreshed, and new store designs will be implemented one after another. A new open-concept store opened in McKinney, Texas, this summer, and a two-story immersive themed store will launch in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in September.
Poirier compared the immersive new store experience to a concert at the Las Vegas Globe. KFC’s new store design aims to guide customers to put down their mobile phones and immerse themselves in the offline dining atmosphere.
The brand visual image has been updated simultaneously: the new logo places the image of Colonel Sanders between the "KFC" letters on both sides, and the overall outline replicates the iconic FamilyMart shape. The brand stated that the visual image of the classic Family Bucket will be optimized and upgraded, and the image of Colonel Sanders will also be slightly modernized.
Business challenges faced by brands
Rendering of the new KFC store design, combining elements of the classic FamilyMart bucket and Colonel Sanders
With more than 34,000 stores worldwide, KFC is one of the world's largest restaurant chains and a core pillar of Yum Brands. Now that the parent company is planning to sell sister brand Pizza Hut, which continues to suffer from weak operations, KFC's performance is becoming increasingly critical.
But KFC itself also has many problems.
The U.S. market has been losing market share for years to emerging brands such as Raising Cane’s. Barclays data shows that in 2021, KFC held 16% of the U.S. chicken fast food market, ranking second behind Chick-fil-A; in 2024, the market share fell to 9.4%, with Popeyes and Raising Cane’s completing the overtake, and KFC slipped to fourth in the industry.
KFC's performance in overseas markets was more stable. Yum ranks International KFC and top-performing Taco Bell as the group's two growth engines.
KFC's global same-store sales rose 2% in its latest reported quarter. Yum! no longer separately discloses the same-store sales data of KFC in the United States, which reflects that the contribution of the domestic business to the group's overall performance is minimal. In terms of system sales, KFC's two core markets are China and Europe, with the United States ranking third.
In order to reverse the decline of its U.S. business, Yum appointed Catherine Tan-Gillespie as president of KFC U.S. more than a year ago. She launched a series of recovery measures, including a variety of cost-effective packages and relaunching the classic brand image of Colonel Sanders.
Tan-Gillespie said in an interview with the catering industry media "Restaurant Business" this month that KFC in the United States has achieved positive same-store sales growth for three consecutive quarters.