The Fast-Food Giant Eating Up The World

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Jul 15, 2010, 4:27:58 PM7/15/10

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The Fast-Food Giant Eating Up The World
The Colonel's army is on the march. Vast swathes of China have fallen under his dominion, and he is making inroads in India and Russia. It is one of the great American conquests of our time: the Kentucky Fried Chickenification of the middle classes in the world's emerging economies. And it all means that KFC's parent company, Yum! Brands, which also owns Pizza Hut and the Mexican food outlet Taco Bell, has earned the exclamation mark on which it insists. With 37,000 restaurants in 110 countries, Yum! even eclipses that more famous icon of American colonisation, McDonald's, to rank as the world's largest restaurant chain in terms of numbers of outlets. For Yum! the task is to forge onward in this virgin territory, but also to shore up its gains against the hungry McDonald's and other fast-food giants, all the while trying to keep the home fires burning back in the US, where sales are challenging because consumers are watching their wallets and their waistlines. The 23 years since Yum! opened its first KFC in China near Beijing's Tiananmen Square provide a masterclass in overseas expansion. Its success to date has tempted a hundred imitations and whose progress in the future will be one of the most closely watched stories in corporate America.