Why in the world did Kentucky Fried Chicken change their recognizable name to KFC?
The truth is actually stranger than you think.
It's not for the reason you'd expect, and the irony is that if they had gone with their
first name choice, none of the name-changing drama would have happened.
Probably.
First, let's talk about the elephant in the room and that rumor that everyone's heard:
They wanted to get rid of the word "fried" so health-conscious customers wouldn't automatically
think of artery-clogging fats whenever they considered eating at the chicken chain.
“Apparently they have a new and cheese sandwich right here, where they change the bread to
fried chicken.”
Strangely, this is a rumor that started with KFC themselves.
According to Snopes, that actually was the official statement released by the chain's
public relations department.
They claimed that they really did offer some healthy menu items and were making a swing
toward being more health-conscious, and wanted everyone to know that.
Most importantly, they wanted people to know it and make their way back to the chain restaurant
by any means necessary.
It sounds like a legitimate reason for rebranding, right?
But it definitely wasn't the whole truth, and it was sort of a double-edged sword.
KFC was, after all, still fried, so trying to hide the word fried behind the letter F
wasn't really fooling anyone, was it?
It was actually just a story, and the real story was even stranger.
In 1990 — the year before KFC rebranded — the state of Kentucky did a weird thing.
Snopes says the more officially-named Commonwealth of Kentucky was looking to get rid of some
of their state debt,
“Help me.
I’m poor.”
So someone came up with an idea that was equal parts brilliant, bizarre, and completely alienating.
They decided to trademark their name so anyone using the word Kentucky for any commercial
reason would need to pay the state a licensing fee.
The then-Kentucky Fried Chicken chain spent a year negotiating with the state, basically
saying it was pretty insane to make them pay a fee to use a name they had trademarked and
had been using for decades.
We all know how it turned out: Kentucky Fried Chicken became KFC, and they took the opportunity
to introduce the name change along with a complete redesign of their packaging and image.
KFC and Kentucky settled their issue in 2006, and it was agreed that KFC could keep using
their original name.
But fast forward a bit to 2016, and you'll find the issue isn't over.
This time, it was the University of Kentucky who hopped on the crazy-trademark bandwagon,
and they claimed they were the ones who owned the word Kentucky, at least, when it came
to clothing.
With more than 400 businesses using the word in trademarks or trademark applications, it
might seem as though they were fighting an uphill battle.
But they decided to fight it anyway.
“This is Sparta!”
They first clashed with a distillery called Kentucky Mist Moonshine, and shockingly, when
the distillery took them to court to argue there was no mistaking them with the university
and they should be allowed to make merch with their name on it, the Lexington Herald-Leader
reported the judge threw out the case in favor of the university.
Could that be part of the reason KFC remains KFC?
Switching from Kentucky Fried Chicken to KFC wasn't a huge stretch, and KFC has said as
much.
They've even admitted that it's probably a better name anyway, saying:
"Maybe because KFC is just easier to say with your mouth full."
They give a few other tongue-in-cheek explanations, too, saying that it fits better on signs,
and there were fewer syllables.
They also didn't want people to think of them as just a place to go for chicken, because
they have other stuff, too.
And that seems more of a justification than a reason, doesn't it?
But they do bring up a super important point: People were already calling them KFC.
They had been KFC to a lot of people for a long time, and it made switching that much
easier.
If you look back through KFC's history, you'll see that the first restaurant that Colonel
Sanders opened wasn't in Kentucky at all — it was in Salt Lake City, Utah.
In 1952, Deseret News says Sanders headed to Utah to meet up with a man he'd previously
met at the National Restaurant Association.
That man — Leon W. "Pete" Harman — owned the Harman Cafe in Salt Lake City and, at
the time, Sanders owned his Cafe.
Sanders ended up cooking fried chicken for the Harmans, and Harman put it on the menu
in his cafe.
He then hired a sign painter named Don Anderson to paint something in the windows to advertise
the new addition, and what got painted there was Anderson's idea: Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Sanders passed through again two weeks later, saw the sign, and the rest is history.
But it was almost very different.
At first, Deseret News says they had considered calling it Utah Fried Chicken because, well,
they were in Utah.
They settled on Kentucky because it cultivated an image of friendly Southern hospitality.
There was one more rumor going around regarding the KFC name change that warrants discussion,
and that's the one that says they weren’t allowed to describe their product as chicken.
KFC says that's particularly ridiculous.
Snopes says the name change was partnered with the weird rumor that KFC was actually
breeding mutant chickens with four, six, or eight legs to supply all the meat needed for
their restaurants.
"Oh my God, my sister told me about KFC breeding these mutant chickens."
That's disturbing on so many levels, but it turns out that the rumor had more legs than
KFC's supposed mutant birds.
So, eat up!
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