KFC’s same-store sales in the U.S. tumbled five per cent, marking their third straight quarter of declines this year.

The drop came even as Yum in August launched $5 offers on two new items under its “Taste of KFC” value menu, including eight-piece chicken nuggets pack as well as a chicken nugget meal bowl in addition to the two-piece drum and thigh meal.

The company was responding to the ongoing “value wars” in the fast-food industry from peers such as McDonald’s and Burger King.

The chain, like many of its peers, has also contended with diners seeking deals and discounts when eating out to counter menu prices that remain high.

Yum’s Tex-Mex food chain Taco Bell, in contrast, remained a bright spot. U.S. same-store sales rose four per cent, the 11th straight quarter of increase.

The company’s worldwide comparable sales fell two per cent, compared with market expectations of a 0.23 per cent rise, as per data compiled by LSEG.

In international markets, the Pizza Hut parent faced the protracted impact from boycotts related to Israel’s war in Gaza.

Sales impact from the conflict had surfaced in several other markets beyond Malaysia, Indonesia and the Middle East, executives had said in August.

Burger King parent Restaurant Brands International missed quarterly revenue expectations on Tuesday, while McDonald’s reported its biggest quarterly global sales drop in four years last week.

Excluding items, Yum earned $1.37 per share in the third quarter ended Sept 30. Analysts on average were expecting a profit of $1.41 per share.

— Reporting by Juveria Tabassum

The post Yum Brands reports surprise fall in global sales amid KFC’s struggles in US appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The Canadian arm of the Yum Brands-owned chain set up a “limited” test run for what it calls KFC Plant-Based Fried Chicken at its 6055 Creditview Rd. store in Mississauga, Ont. on Wednesday, running until 11 p.m. ET or while the supply lasts.

The faux-meat product, available in a Plant-Based Fried Chicken sandwich and as Plant-Based Fried Popcorn Chicken, was developed and produced for KFC by Lightlife, a brand of U.S-based Greenleaf Foods, a subsidiary of Maple Leaf Foods.

“Feedback gathered during the limited, one-restaurant, one-day test will determine KFC Canada’s plans to roll out the Plant-Based Fried Chicken options nationally in 2020,” the company said Tuesday in a release.

KFC today is among the top 10 restaurant chains in Canada by number of outlets. According to Yum, whose other chains in Canada include Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, KFC’s Canadian footprint today includes 639 stores, compared to over 4,000 in the U.S.

KFC and Lightlife didn’t provide an ingredient list for the new faux chicken in Tuesday’s release. The plant ingredients used in Lightlife’s retail “Veggie Chick’n Tenders” brand include soy protein, tapioca, wheat gluten and wheat and potato starches.

Vegetarian options aren’t new to the KFC Canada menu, which has had such items since 2009, including a vegetarian sandwich.

KFC has also previously tested plant-based “chicken” in other markets, including nuggets and wings made by Los Angeles-based Beyond Meat in the U.S. in August, and a faux-chicken “Imposter Burger” in the U.K. in May.

Lightlife’s faux-meats also aren’t new to the Canadian fast food market; the company developed a Canadian-made plant-based burger for Harvey’s Canada, which was launched across that chain in September. It also launched a plant-based burger for the Kelseys Original Roadhouse chain in May.

Both Kelseys and Harvey’s are operated in Canada by Vaughan, Ont.-based Recipe Unlimited, whose dining brands also include The Keg, Montana’s and fried chicken chain St-Hubert, among others.

“We believe the Colonel’s famous finger lickin’ good taste should have no boundaries,” KFC Canada’s chief marketing officer Sam Redman said in Tuesday’s release. “So we’ve created several craveable plant-based options for Canadians looking for a meat-free meal.”

“With pioneering partners like KFC, we can make plant-based foods more broadly available to the growing number of consumers seeking the option on the go,” Greenleaf CEO Dan Curtin said in the same release. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post KFC tests plant-based ‘fried chicken’ in Ontario appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The quick-service fried chicken restaurant will nationally roll out the vegan menu items, produced by U.S. processor Beyond Meat, based on the customer feedback from the Atlanta test, Yum said.

Yum is the latest big-chain restaurant jumping on the vegan bandwagon, a growing market as more fast-food chains tweak their menus to add new options for vegans and “flexitarians.”

Plant-based meat alternatives have seen booming interest from consumers and restaurants, supporting startups such as Beyond Meat and its competitor Impossible Foods, and even sparking interest from veteran meat companies such as Tyson Foods and Perdue Foods.

Beyond Meat has already partnered with other chains including Subway, Del Taco, Carl’s Jr., Dunkin’, Tim Hortons and A+W; Impossible Foods is working with chains such as Burger King, White Castle, Qdoba and Red Robin.

— Reporting for Reuters by Nivedita Balu in Bangalore.

The post KFC to test plant-based nuggets, wings appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

KFC, the second-biggest U.S. chicken chain by sales after privately held Chick-fil-A, is giving its U.S. poultry suppliers until the end of 2018 to stop using antibiotics important to human medicine.

Some 70 per cent of antibiotics vital for fighting infections in humans are sold for use in meat and dairy production and medical researchers have concerns that overuse of those drugs may diminish their effectiveness in fighting disease in humans.

McDonald’s Corp.’s roughly 14,000 U.S. restaurants last year stopped serving chicken raised with antibiotics considered important to human medicine. Its Chicken McNuggets are a top seller and the change put pressure on the rest of the industry to follow.

Chick-fil-A is going a step further, vowing in 2014 to switch to poultry raised without any antibiotics at all by the end of 2019.

Given its stature, KFC had been the focus of several antibiotic reduction campaigns by consumer, health and environment groups in addition to a coalition of British and U.S. shareholders with more than US$2 trillion in assets under management.

“We recognize that it’s a growing public health concern,” KFC U.S. President Kevin Hochman told Reuters on Thursday.

“This is something that’s important to many of our customers and it’s something we need to do to show relevance and modernity within our brand,” Hochman said.

The policy applies only to KFC in the U.S. and its 4,200 restaurants supplied by some 2,000 domestic chicken farms, said Hochman. KFC’s antibiotic policy is set on a country-by-country basis, he added. Yum spun off its KFC-dominated China division in November.

KFC said in a statement on its website that its plan will make it the “first major chicken chain to extend this commitment to our bone-in chicken.”

‘Great news’

Vijay Sukumar, chief food innovation officer for KFC U.S., said the new policy applies throughout the bird’s full life cycle, which includes the hatchery where chicks are sometimes injected with antibiotics while still in the shell.

Using data from a 2017 WATT PoultryUSA survey, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) estimates that more than 42 per cent of the U.S. chicken industry is either under an antibiotics stewardship pledge or has already converted to responsible practices.

KFC’s new policy will likely move the number even higher, said Lena Brook, a food policy advocate at the NRDC, who noted that the estimate includes “raised without antibiotics” pledges as well as “raised without medically important” antibiotics pledges from producers like Tyson Foods, Perdue Farms and others.

“It’s great news for fried chicken lovers, and most importantly it’s great news for public health,” Brook said. “Their commitment is one that we’ve been waiting for.”

Human infections from antibiotic-resistant bacteria pose a grave threat to global health and are estimated to kill at least 23,000 Americans each year, although a recent Reuters investigation found that many infection-related deaths are going uncounted.

Hochman said the policy change has been in the works for a year. It will add some incremental cost that KFC plans to manage rather than pass on in the form of menu price increases, he said.

At least some of KFC’s suppliers are already well on their way to compliance.

Tyson, the largest U.S. poultry producer and a KFC supplier, has announced plans to eliminate the use of human antibiotics in its chicken flocks by September 2017.

Yum’s Taco Bell chain already committed to serve chicken raised without antibiotics important to human medicine in all U.S. restaurants by the end of last month. Its Pizza Hut division has the same rules for pizza toppings.

— Lisa Baertlein reports on the restaurant and grocery sectors for Reuters from Los Angeles.

The post KFC to curb antibiotic use in U.S. chickens it buys appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The proposal from shareholder activists As You Sow, of Oakland, Calif., and the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia comes as KFC lags rivals McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Subway and Wendy’s in setting policies to curb the routine use of antibiotics in chicken production.

Those policies are a first step for many fast-food chains that are under pressure to help combat the rise of dangerous “superbugs,” as antibiotic-resistant bacteria are known.

Yum’s Taco Bell chain has committed to stop using antibiotics important to human medicine in its chicken supply early next year and the company’s Pizza Hut chain has made a similar promise for the chicken used in its pizza toppings. KFC, which buys far more chicken than its two sister brands, has not made a similar promise.

Some 70 per cent of antibiotics vital for fighting infections in humans are sold for use in meat and dairy production.

Veterinary use of antibiotics is legal. However, as the number of human infections from antibiotic-resistant bacteria increases, consumer advocates and public health experts have campaigned to end the routine use of antibiotics important to human medicine for growth promotion or illness prevention in farm animals that are not sick.

Advocates have targeted KFC because it has far more restaurants than any other fast-food chicken chain and is second in sales behind Chick-fil-A, which has committed to finishing its switch to chicken raised without any antibiotics by the end of 2019.

McDonald’s USA last week said it completed its move to chicken raised without antibiotics important to human medicine. Wendy’s plans to make a similar switch by 2017.

KFC has said that by 2017, antibiotics important for human medicine will only be used to maintain chicken health and only under the supervision and prescription of a licensed veterinarian. As per federal government guidance, KFC does not allow the use of such antibiotics for growth promotion.

Critics say the stated policy at KFC effectively allows for routine use of antibiotics by its chicken suppliers.

“Yum Brands’ silence in the face of this looming antibiotic resistance crisis is bad for business,” said Austin Wilson, As You Sow’s environmental health program manager.

As You Sow filed similar shareholder proposals at Wendy’s and Burger King parent Restaurant Brands International, but pulled them after the companies agreed to set stricter antibiotic policies by the end of 2016.

— Lisa Baertlein is a Reuters correspondent covering the restaurant and grocery sectors from Los Angeles.

The post Shareholders press Yum for stricter antibiotics policy appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The announcement came amid mounting pressure on Taco Bell to remove artificial ingredients, to source products from more humanely raised animals and to match Chick-fil-A, McDonald’s, Subway and other rivals’ commitments to sourcing meat raised with fewer antibiotics.

McDonald’s said in September its 16,000 U.S. and Canadian restaurants would switch to cage-free eggs within 10 years.

McDonald’s uses about two billion eggs each year in the U.S., where it dominates breakfast. Analysts estimate that breakfast accounts for about 25 per cent of McDonald’s domestic sales and roughly 40 per cent of profit.

Taco Bell, which recently said that breakfast accounted for six per cent of the chain’s sales mix, uses the equivalent of 13 million eggs each year.

McDonald’s cage-free commitment demands far greater change in the North American egg industry that is rebuilding flocks after the worst bird flu outbreak in U.S. history. For example, its recently launched all-day breakfast program sent egg prices higher.

Burger King, also a small player in the breakfast category, has committed to going 100 per cent cage-free for its eggs by 2017.

Dunkin’ Donuts in March said that 10 per cent of all eggs sourced for its breakfast sandwiches in the U.S. would be from cage-free hens by the end of 2016.

Elsewhere, Starbucks and Panera Bread each have said they would make the move to cage-free eggs by 2020.

Taco Bell, a division of Yum Brands, said its whole eggs would be certified according to cage-free egg production standards set by the American Humane Association.

The chain also reiterated that it would remove artificial flavours and colours, added trans fat, high-fructose corn syrup and unsustainable palm oil from its core menu items by the beginning of 2016.

— Lisa Baertlein is a Reuters correspondent covering the grocery and restaurant sectors from Los Angeles.

The post Taco Bell to switch to cage-free eggs after 2016, ahead of rivals appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.