What does KFC mean to you?

When I was invited to spend the day at the KFC headquarters and to visit a local KFC restaurant I was pretty sckeptical. The chicken pieces arrive frozen and ready to cook - right? The chicken pieces are greasy - right? The food is high in salt and sugar - right?

What I found out was that all the above ideas were Wrong!!

KFC (used to be known as Kentucky Fried Chicken) first opened in the UK in 1965 and is today on a continual, nutritional journey. The original core recipe is still used to make their signature chicken pieces and they offer to the public around 500,000 chickens per week! They are involved in ensuring they have 'happy chickens' and look after them under the watchful eye of Red Tractor initiative.

KFC is very environmentally conscious and health aware, trying to comply with government guidelines to reduce saturated fats and salts in the food items.  The children's menu in the stores lists the calories of all of the choices allowing parents to make an informed choice of food for their child.


There were three of us bloggers and a BBC film crew following us around the head office and the restaurant and I did feel a little sorry for the BBC crew who had to film as we ate our way through a fantastic selection of products!  The film crew are making a fly on the wall, three part documentary about KFC for the BBC which is planned to air in the autumn.  Keep an eye out for me and my fellow bloggers (Jan B who writes at A Glug of Oil and Chris O of Tikichris) in case we get a few seconds air time!

The sweetcorn cobbettes are just pieces of a very sweet variety of corn that is steamed and wrapped to keep it hot without any added butter or salt.

We tried the three main types and flavours of chicken breast and then each got a salad with our preference.  I liked the original recipe. I very much liked the salad, lots of greenery and tomatoes with crunch and a choice of dressing (I picked cesear)

We were also able to try the next thing that is being launched in the autumn but unfortunately we are forbidden from talking about it yet. Just let me say you will love it, it's yummy!!

After loads more food and finishing with some ice cream we had a little test to do.  KFC is trying to reduce the salt in their chicken and we were instructed to find the odd one out of the three pieces we were given through a food hatch (very clandestine!).  There could be two with more salt and one piece with less or two with less and one piece with more.  We wouldn't know, just taste and find the odd one out.  Well none of us foodies got it right!

We were then driven to a KFC restaurant just beside Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport. It's all very high tech in the restaurants with display screens full of information such as how long the batch of chicken has been cooked and the time to remove it from sale. I wanted to know if there were any schemes or plans to implement any such scheme where the meat that did not sell could be given to a food charity or homeless facility but due to Health & Safety the product would have to be chilled down quickly and stored until it was possible for some one to collect and currently that would require equipment and storage that is not available to the stores.  It is not, however, never going to happen so I will watch this space as I hate wastage.

All the chicken pieces arrive fresh and are picked through to look for any bits of giblets that may remain and any sharp pieces of bone that might cause distress.

The pieces of chicken are then rinsed, shake dried and breaded by hand in a flour seasoned with the famous 'secret recipe' - did you know that only two people ever know the spice mix and they can never travel on the same aeroplane!

Then the pieces are loaded onto trays and lowered into the pressure fryers for a specific amount of time.

The pieces are then drained for a further five minutes before they are placed in the dispensers ready to be sold in the restaurant.

We were given many opportunities to ask questions and were given open and honest answers.  One of my questions was on a subject very much in the media - Halal meat. A portion of the meat is killed according to Halal regulations but they must follow EU stun regulations They are also on the way to being palm oil free and are currently at 99%. They are reducing the salt in their food and are committed to carrying on trying to make improvements in taste and quality as time goes forward.

Thanks to KFC for a fun and informative day out - they certainly educated me and changed my perceptions.  I was not paid to attend the event and all opinions and photos are my own.