A Brief History Of Colonel Sanders & KFC 1890 to 2007

[Ken_Griffiths]

A brief history of KFC and how it all started, taken from 'yahoo answers.com' and credited to a user called 1smartcookie. This is a quick reference for any new forum member.

9/9/1890
Harland Sanders is born just outside Henryville, Indiana.

1900-1924
Harland Sanders holds a variety of jobs including: farm hand, streetcar conductor, army private in Cuba, blacksmith's helper, railyard fireman, insurance salesman, tire salesman and service station operator for Standard Oil.

1930
In the midst of the depression, Harland Sanders opens his first restaurant in the small front room of a gas station in Corbin, Kentucky. Sanders serves as station operator, chief cook and cashier and names the dining area "Sanders Court & Café."

1936
Kentucky Governor Ruby Laffoon makes Harland Sanders an honorary Kentucky Colonel in recognition of his contributions to the state's cuisine.

1937
The Sanders Court & Café adds a motel and expands the restaurant to 142 seats.

1939
The Sanders Court & Café is first listed in Duncan Hines' "Adventures in Good Eating."

Fire destroys The Sanders Court & Café, but it is rebuilt and reopened.

The pressure cooker is introduced. Soon thereafter Colonel Sanders begins using it to fry his chicken to give customers fresh chicken, faster.

1940
Birthdate of the Original Recipe

1949
Sanders marries Claudia Price.

1952
The Colonel begins actively franchising his chicken business by traveling from town to town and cooking batches of chicken for restaurant owners and employees.

The Colonel awards Pete Harman of Salt Lake City with the first KFC franchise. A handshake agreement stipulates a payment of a nickel to Sanders for each chicken sold.

1955
An interstate highway is built to bypass Corbin, Kentucky. Sanders sells the service station on the same day that he receives his first social security check for $105. After paying debts owed, he is virtually broke. He decides to go on the road to sell his Secret Recipe to restaurants.

1957
Kentucky Fried Chicken first sold in buckets

1960
The Colonel's hard work on the road begins to pay off and there are 190 KFC franchisees and 400 franchise units in the U.S. and Canada.

1964
Kentucky Fried Chicken has more than 600 franchised outlets in the United States, Canada and the first overseas outlet, in England.

Sanders sells his interest in the U.S. company for $2 million to a group of investors headed by John Y. Brown Jr., future governor of Kentucky. The Colonel remains a public spokesman for the company.

1965
Colonel Sanders receives the Horatio Alger Award from the American Schools and Colleges Association.

1966
The Kentucky Fried Chicken Corporation goes public.

1969
The Kentucky Fried Chicken Corporation is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

1971
More than 3,500 franchised and company-owned restaurants are in worldwide operation when Heublein Inc. acquires KFC Corporation.

1976
An independent survey ranks the Colonel as the world's second most recognizable celebrity.

1977
Colonel Sanders speaks before a U.S. Congressional Committee on Aging.

1979
KFC cooks up 2.7 billion pieces of chicken. There are approximately 6,000 KFC restaurants worldwide with sales of more than $2 billion.

12/16/1980
Colonel Harland Sanders, who came to symbolize quality in the food industry, dies after being stricken with leukemia. Flags on all Kentucky state buildings fly at half-staff for four days.

1982
Kentucky Fried Chicken becomes a subsidiary of R.J. Reynolds Industries, Inc. (now RJR Nabisco, Inc.) when Heublein, Inc. is acquired by Reynolds.

1986
PepsiCo, Inc. acquires KFC from RJR Nabisco, Inc.

1997
PepsiCo, Inc. announces the spin-off of its quick service restaurants - KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut - into Tricon Global Restaurants, Inc.

2002
Tricon Global Restaurants, Inc., the world's largest restaurant company, changes its corporate name to YUM! Brands, Inc. In addition to KFC, the company owns A&W® All-American Food® Restaurants, Long John Silvers®, Pizza Hut® and Taco Bell® restaurants.

2006
More than a billion of the Colonel's "finger lickin' good" chicken dinners are served annually in more than 80 countries and territories around the world.

2007
KFC proudly introduces a new recipe that keeps the Colonel's 11 herbs and spices and finger-lickin' flavor, but contains Zero Grams of Trans Fat per serving thanks to new cooking oil.

[ThePieMan]

I've been reading the New Yorker Article as posted by Helen , kfc11.proboards.com/post/8540/thread, in particular with reference to KFC Ownership and it seems that at the time of the Brown & Massey buyout, CHS had sold off:

England
Florida
Utah, and
Montana;

retained for himself Canada, and what was left of the US and the rest of the world went to Brown & Massey.

This then begs the question: Who now owns jurisdictional control over these five different regions, AND have any of these regions consolidated?  Was Florida, Utah, and Montana sold as a single package, or individually and separately? Furthermore, when originally sold off by CHS, did the owners of these different regions each receive a copy of the "Secret Recipe?"

This is the landscape of the KFC world at the time of the Brown & Massey buyout; and, it certainly indicates that the claim that there is only one solitary copy of the OR in CHS's handwriting, which that is held in Yum Brands' safe may not be factually true.

If this is indeed the case, then what does that indicate with regard to maintaining Trade Secrets? Are all these owners in honor-bound agreement to maintain the secret of the OR and if they have mutually agreed to do so, would that then not amount to being a cartel arrangement?

From a recent posting about the divestment of one of Canada's KFC royal franchisee family's involvement in KFC Canada, that one or more "key guys" may have a copy of the OR, independently of KFC (Yums) which suggests that there might be as many as 6-8 (or more) copies of CHS's OR in current distribution. 


There are many questions surrounding this issue, and exploring it here, in context, with the potted history of KFC, it appears that there are many unanswered questions that not only have regional impact, but also cross border, domestic and international, implications that may very well be in conflict, at least with the spirit some of US, and International laws. Fascinating...

Depending on how these different KFC Regions developed in may also account for regional differences in the taste of KFC OR. Does KFC OR Chicken taste different in Florida, Utah, and Montana when compared to the rest of the US? I has already been claimed that 1980's Canadian KFC tasted different to US KFC, how about when compared to English KFC? Such a delicious conundrum!

Addendum:
KFC (US) - Yum Brands
KFC (CA) - Col. Sanders Kentucky Fried Chicken, Ltd., Canada
Florida - Margaret Adams (CHS's daughter)
Utah - Pete Harman
Montana -
England -
KFC (CN) - KFC China...

jm2cw.

[ThePieMan]

Jan 18, 2015 1:51:58 GMT Ken_Griffiths said:

...
1952
The Colonel begins actively franchising his chicken business by traveling from town to town and cooking batches of chicken for restaurant owners and employees.

The Colonel awards Pete Harman of Salt Lake City with the first KFC franchise. A handshake agreement stipulates a payment of a nickel to Sanders for each chicken sold.

1955
An interstate highway is built to bypass Corbin, Kentucky. Sanders sells the service station on the same day that he receives his first social security check for $105. After paying debts owed, he is virtually broke. He decides to go on the road to sell his Secret Recipe to restaurants.
...

Ken_Griffiths are you sure the events in the timeline at 1952 did not occur after the interstate bypass?

[ThePieMan]

Demographics of a KFC Lover.

1) Colonel Harland Sanders passed away in December 1980. This gives us a base age for anyone who claims to have met, played, talked with, or worked with The Colonel. That is >40 years old. (With a caveat...)

To have a clear recollection ( unless extremely close to the colonel) I would posit that one would need to be at least 5 years old. Such an individual would be 45-46 years old.

Further I would posit that in order to have a clear and present memory of the taste and aroma of KFC Original Recipe Chicken, as served in Canada whilst still under The Colonel's leadership one would need to have been at least 10-15 years old. Such a person today would be around 50-55 years old.

Thus for Children who knew or met Colonel Sanders, and have a clear recollection of him, today they would be 45-55 years old. These are our KFC Kinder.

2) Next we have all those people who hd the opportunity to savour, sample, or even make Colonel Sanders Original Recipe Chicken. I put this age group as, "young working age," that is from around 16 to 25 years old. Now workers and eats could have been older, but we'll cover that in the next group.

This group of people today would be somewhere between 70-80 years old, if they had any direct interaction with Colonel Sanders during their time working at KFC in Canada, and 85-95 years old if they interacted with him in the US. These are our KFC Converts.

3) Our final group are those that may have been Franchise Holder, or older citizenry. We must not forget that Sanders did interact and cook with families and church groups in his time, when he had the time.This age group I place at 30-50 years old.

As franchisees, this age bracket is dependent on their personal success and individual means, and possible inheritance from parents. Today, taking all factors into account, as above, they would be between 90-120 years old. I dunno what to call them.

Why is this important? It maps out the world in which we live and the people that we may meet along the way. Now, there is the age group 55-70 years old - they have not been forgotten. This group of individuals are us. Perhaps we worked for KFC, perhaps we only ate there. If we worked, maybe we later rose to the rank of manager or franchise owner? Who knows?

What we do know is that we occupy the timeline from 1950 through to 1965. Anything we claim to know about KFC and what we remember before we were 10 is suspect and unreliable. We are the first generation to not have experienced KFC as cooked by the Colonel, unless of course we were in Canada at the time.

I find it useful to consider the demographics of people when discussing issues related to statements made about the Colonel and his Original Recipe. I also find it fascinating the economic, social, and historic framework that was in place at the time when KFC was being developed, and later franchised. more on that later.

jm2cw.

TPM

[Ken_Griffiths]

Jan 15, 2021 9:05:33 GMT ThePieMan said:

Jan 18, 2015 1:51:58 GMT Ken_Griffiths said:

...
1952
The Colonel begins actively franchising his chicken business by traveling from town to town and cooking batches of chicken for restaurant owners and employees.

The Colonel awards Pete Harman of Salt Lake City with the first KFC franchise. A handshake agreement stipulates a payment of a nickel to Sanders for each chicken sold.

1955
An interstate highway is built to bypass Corbin, Kentucky. Sanders sells the service station on the same day that he receives his first social security check for $105. After paying debts owed, he is virtually broke. He decides to go on the road to sell his Secret Recipe to restaurants.
...

Ken_Griffiths are you sure the events in the timeline at 1952 did not occur after the interstate bypass?

I can’t recall where the timeline was taken/copied from TPM, but my own personal thoughts are the Colonel got the idea from Pete/Arline Harmon after their initial success at their restaurant and that the Colonel began the franchising as his own restaurant/cafe sales also dropped off due to the bypass.

By 1955/56 the Colonel & Claudia were using The 100lb barrels to help fill their orders for their seasoning and the business grew all-the-more after the restaurant was sold, which was around the time the Colonel also started to receive his social security payment.

[btb]

Jan 15, 2021 9:05:33 GMT ThePieMan said:

Jan 18, 2015 1:51:58 GMT Ken_Griffiths said:

...Ken_Griffiths are you sure the events in the timeline at 1952 did not occur after the interstate bypass?

I, too, wondered about this.  I visited CHS' restaurant in Corbin, KY with my wife and kids long ago and thought that the story then was that Harland first traveled across the country selling his product after the super highway was built and affected his Sanders' Cafe business.  And I travel on that super highway now about 2 times a year going to and fro from summer residence to winter residence USA.  And when I pass the 2 Corbin exits on the expressway, I always say a prayer to the great and amazing, in my estimation, CHS.