Synonymous with fried chicken, KFC is a legend in the fast-food space.
This American brand enjoys a cult following across the world thanks to its delicious offerings.
But you would be shocked to know some of the secrets behind it.
Here are 10 untold truths of KFC - part 2!
Col. Sanders was not a real colonel
The founder of KFC, Harland Sanders, is the worldwide mascot of the KFC brand.
His face can be found on every chicken bucket, soda cup, poster, and signage of KFC.
He is widely known as Colonel Sanders and unsurprisingly, most people believe it to
be true.
But that’s not the truth.
Harland Sanders was never a real colonel.
He did serve in the U.S. army, but reportedly only in the capacity of a mule tender.
He started his fried chicken restaurant in Kentucky in 1930, and after it became popular,
the restaurant brought in a lot of fame and business for the state of Kentucky.
Thus, in 1935, the Governor of Kentucky, Ruby Laffoon, decided to honor Sanders with the
honorary title of ‘Colonel’.
Sanders’ contribution to the state cuisine was another reason for the honor.
Then, in 1950, Sanders’ friend, Governor Lawrence Wetherby, bestowed the title of ‘Kentucky
Colonel’ upon him.
Thus, Harland Sanders’ colonel title was just an honorary one and not a military rank.
But Sanders’ took his title quite seriously.
He adopted a certain look and dressing style that included growing a goatee, wearing a
string tie and a white suit.
He took his honorary title so seriously that he was reportedly never seen in any other
attire in public.
KFC was not always known as KFC
When Harland Sanders decided to start his business of selling fried chicken in 1930,
he did so in front of the Shell gas station near the small town of North Corbin, Kentucky
that he operated at that time.
He called his small business ‘Sanders Court & Café’.
His food and business were a success, and Sanders soon expanded his operations to a
larger gas station nearby.
By 1955, Sanders Court & Café was a well-established name on travellers’ routes through Kentucky.
So when an interstate route was planned that completely circumvented Corbin, Sanders sold
the restaurant and adopted a franchise model to expand his business, but the name had to
be changed to something else.
Thus, ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken’ was born.
Though not called ‘Sanders Court & Café’ or even ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken’, a KFC
can still be found at the original Corbin location in Kentucky, with the addition of
a museum that gives visitors a glimpse into the history of KFC and Harland Sanders.
KFC's fried chicken wasn't always served in buckets
KFC is known for its signature fried chicken.
Served in an iconic red and white striped cardboard bucket, customers have come to associate
KFC with that ubiquitous bucket.
But KFC’s original fried chicken was not served in buckets.
In fact, the buckets were unheard of until 1957.
For almost 27 years after the opening of the restaurant, customers could only buy individual
pieces of chicken.
But in 1957, one of the KFC franchisees, Pete Harman, came up with the idea of serving a
‘bucket meal’ of fried chicken, which consisted of five bread rolls, a pint of gravy
and 14 pieces of chicken.
Since then, serving fried chicken in a bucket has become a signature concept of the KFC
chain.
So popular is KFC’s bucket that in July 2019, KFC in Russia even launched a hat in
the shape of the KFC bucket.
Marketed as a fashion accessory for KFC’s ultimate fans, the hat looks exactly like
the KFC bucket, including the company logo.
Now that’s a fashion statement for a die-hard fan!
Many KFC items have MSG
KFC’s signature crunchy fried chicken is scrumptious and addictive, but not the most
healthy food around.
Unbeknownst to most people, KFC food is reportedly loaded with MSG (monosodium glutamate).
MSG is considered a food additive that is generally added to soups, canned vegetables,
processed meat and Chinese food to enhance its flavor.
The USFDA (United States Food and Drug Administration) has recognized MSG as safe for human consumption,
but the ingredient has remained mired in controversy for a long time.
Thus, the USFDA has made it mandatory for companies to disclose information about foods
containing MSG.
As required by law, KFC responsibly lists the nutritional information of all its food
preparations on its website.
They even have a separate section for food allergies and sensitivities where users can
filter out all the allergens that they wish to avoid.
MSG is actually just table salt combined with glutamate, a compound already found in most
foods and your own body.
Just like with anything else, it’s always possible you could have an adverse reaction
to the compound, but there is nothing remotely unsafe about MSG overall - other than the
hysteria around it, that is.
The name ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken’ was not coined by Col. Sanders
KFC does not stand for Kentucky Fried Chicken anymore.
But until the parent company phased it out completely from all official branding, KFC
indeed was an acronym for ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken.’
And contrary to popular belief, Col. Sanders did not come up with the name.
Harland Sanders was and still is the official mascot of KFC.
But a painter hired by one of Sanders’ first franchisees, Pete Harman, coined the now-famous
name of the brand.
The painter, Don Anderson, suggested the name 'Kentucky Fried Chicken’, which Harman instantly
liked.
Harman envisioned that the name would help the restaurant stand out from the competition.
Plus, the word ‘Kentucky’ in the name would attract customers to the restaurant
with the promise of the legendary Southern hospitality.
Thus, the name ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken’ was born.
Interestingly, Harman was also the man behind the famous slogan ‘finger lickin’ good’
and the creation of the chicken bucket concept.
He is said to have trademarked the slogan, which soon began to be used in all branding
and promotional materials of KFC.
But it was replaced with ‘So Good’ in 2011.
KFC and Claudia Sanders Dinner House
As the franchising business became successful, Sanders was unable to cope with the rising
demands of a rapidly expanding business.
Thus, he sold the KFC franchise in 1964, but continued to be the face of the business.
The new owners had to simplify the original recipes of the colonel so that relatively
untrained staff at the various KFC outlets could easily prepare and serve the food while
retaining the signature taste.
But these new strategies did not go down well with the colonel, and he was upset with the
new management for altering his original recipes.
So, he and his wife decided to open a new restaurant that served traditional Southern
recipes which he had spent years perfecting.
Col. Sanders and his wife opened ‘The Colonel's Lady's Dinner House’ in Shelbyville.
KFC and Sanders went to court over this, but they reportedly reached an agreement, which
required Sanders to refrain from bad-mouthing the KFC brand and refraining from using the
KFC name.
Thereafter, the couple reportedly sold the restaurant and it was reopened as ‘Claudia
Sanders Dinner House’.
It is said to be the only place other than KFC to be allowed to serve the original fried
chicken recipe developed by Col. Sanders.
KFC’s addictive and that’s science
Much like any other fast food, KFC food is tasty and highly addictive.
According to one explanation, white pepper, which was recently revealed to be one of the
11 secret ingredients in the original fried chicken recipe, was the reason for the addictive
taste of KFC.
In 2016, Col. Sanders’ nephew, Joe Ledington, accidentally revealed that he remembered hand-mixing
the ingredients for the original fried chicken recipe while assisting his uncle, in which
white pepper was the main spice.
White pepper is said to contain a component called ‘piperine’ which is said to stimulate
specific taste receptors in our brain and tongue, making us feel a mouth-watering sensation.
And since pepper is a major part of the original KFC recipe, it is sure to give you an addictive
feeling.
Another ingredient that gives KFC food its addictive taste is the amount of salt in it.
Like most other fast foods, the fried chicken at KFC contains a large portion of salt, and
when the salt in the fried chicken meets the saliva in your mouth, you tend to salivate
even more, giving rise to the addictive feeling.
Texture too plays a big part in making anything addictive.
The crispy, crunchy texture of the exterior of the fried chicken at KFC contrasts very
well with the tender and juicy interior.
Healthy KFC anyone?
KFC was once called ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken’.
But it has now been rebranded as just KFC.
The sudden name change looked fishy and many people believed that this was due to falsified
reports which stated that KFC was breeding mutant chickens with extra wings and legs,
instead of serving actual chicken to customers.
This, many believed, was the reason for the name change so that they would not have to
mention the word ‘chicken’ in their branding, and avoid legal trouble.
But KFC seemed to have fooled everyone with that hoax story.According to many business
publications, KFC changed the name in order to rebrand themselves as a company that offered
more than just fast food.
They no longer wished to have the word ‘fried’ in their name, in order to tap into a customer
demographic that preferred healthier food options.
It is unsure if KFC made any ‘healthy’ changes to its menu, but it did run some commercials
where the phrase ‘kitchen-fresh chicken’ was used instead of ‘fried chicken.'
Ultimately though, the REAL reason KFC changed their name was due to the Commonwealth of
Kentucky trademarking the name, so that all the companies capitalizing off of it would
have to pay up.
Not wanting to pay for licensing fees to keep the word ‘Kentucky’ in their branding,
KFC switched to just using the acronym officially.
Harland Sanders had a very tough childhood
Before KFC, Harland Sanders had a very tough life, especially his childhood.
He was born in rural Indiana, on a farm, and his family was very poor.
He was one of many siblings and his father died when he was just five years old.
His mother had to take up a job at a tomato cannery and Sanders was left behind to take
care of his siblings.
He soon learned to cook, clean and looked after his siblings.
He left home at 13 and took up odd jobs as a farmhand.
And he even joined the U.S. Army at some point, but not in the capacity of an officer.
Subsequently, Sanders got a correspondence course law degree from LaSalle Extension University
and started practising law at the justice of the peace courts in Little Rock, Arkansas.
KFC outlet used to smuggle drugs across the border
When you think of bizarre stories related to KFC, a secret 590-foot drug-smuggling tunnel
to Mexico is not what you would have imagined!
But that is exactly what authorities found at an outlet in 2018 in San Luis, Arizona.
A man called Ivan Lopez was spotted by the police while loading toolboxes into his car
from an abandoned KFC outlet that he owned near the U.S.-Mexico border.
When the police pulled him over and searched his car, they found about 168 kilograms of
narcotics in his car.
But that was just the tip of the iceberg.
Authorities discovered a 590 foot long and 22 foot deep tunnel that ran from the abandoned
KFC in Arizona to the San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico residence of Mr. Lopez.
This tunnel was used to routinely smuggle drugs from across the border.
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