kfc

To most people 2,400 boxed-lunches of Kentucky Fried Chicken is one BIG coronary waiting to happen, but for Egyptian evangelicals it's a bona fide "loaves and fishes" miracle.

It all happened when members of the Egyptian Evangelical Association finished passing out 3,500 preordered and accounted for boxed-lunches from KFC at a ministry meeting in Cairo, Egypt.

There is a local KFC outlet that I often drive past. There is no escaping the powerful wafting aromas that seem to find their way into my car.

I've often joked that maybe KFC have some very large extractor fans rigged in such a way as to maximize that distinctive KFC smell.

KFC have realized this, and have been trialling a new form of advertising that uses the "smell factor".

When you spend a lot of time surfing the interweb you often see certain pictures appear again and again on various websites. One of these pictures is that of an overweight boy at McDonald's.

Someone then took this picture, enlarged it, coupled it with some Kentucky Fried Chicken, and then started posting it on bus shelters.

KFC has more than 11,000 outlets in 80 countries. There is just one problem: bird flu.

For many months now we've been completely set-up by over-zealous reporting of the impending doom. I am no prophet and truly have no idea what may or may not happen. The great irony is that in many developing countries, people are already dying from preventable illnesses and malnutrition by the thousands - however there is no great panic about that.

Despite massive media focus on healthy diet, the last year has seen a huge resurgence in fast food consumption. I'm not talking about the salads here, but the fatty stuff. Consider the following points (via Business Week):

In 1991 the famous fast food outlet Kentucky Fried Chicken re-branded - and became just KFC. It seems that the word "fried" was going our of fashion. In an interesting move KFC owner Yum! Brands have come full circle - changing not only the image of Colonel Sanders, but bringing back that word "fried": KFC on Wednesday opened a store in Louisville, Ky., that uses the full Kentucky Fried Chicken name and features the new, updated image of Sanders, who's wearing a red apron over his white suit.

A KFC TV commercial has been banned due to "misleading the viewers over the actual size of the burger". The ad is for a KFC mini-burger: The woman in the advert may have had small hands, the KFC spokesman added. And they said that the burgers on TV had been cooked in a KFC that day and were really from the shop.

KFC is set to open another 275 outlets in China following an extremely successful year (source Adrants).

President of Yum Brands Chinese division (KFC's parent company) makes this disturbing comment: "In many parts of China, the local municipal governments actually view the arrival of a KFC as a sign of the city coming of age,"

Fast food giant KFC has a nutrition calculator (not for the faint-hearted). Clicking on the option "GUIDE TO KFC's HEALTHY OPTIONS" returns a Page Not Found error.

What more can be said ;-)

Associated Press: "Fried chicken restaurant chain KFC plans to discontinue commercials touting its fried chicken as part of a healthy diet, a campaign that a consumer group complained was deceptive."