News Hot off the Grill: KFC Asks Its Corporate Chefs to Make Kentucky Grilled Chicken Even Better, and They Delivered

Big, juicy news out of Louisville today: KFC, the world’s most popular chicken restaurant chain, is relaunching Kentucky Grilled Chicken (KGC). Following its introduction in 2009, KFC’s grilled option quickly became a customer favorite while changing the quick service restaurant landscape.

Kentucky Grilled Chicken now includes new, 20 percent larger white meat breast pieces. It's marinated for juiciness, slow grilled, and seasoned with a secret blend of herbs and spices. (Photo: Business Wire)

Now, KGC includes new, 20 percent larger white meat breast pieces. It’s marinated for juiciness, slow grilled, and seasoned with a secret blend of herbs and spices. With fewer calories, fewer fat grams and less sodium than Original Recipe, Kentucky Grilled Chicken provides a non-fried option from a brand America knows and loves – without sacrificing the great taste of KFC.

"The 2009 introduction of Kentucky Grilled Chicken was a defining moment in our brand’s storied history,” said KFC Chief Marketing Officer Barry Westrum. "And now, two years later, we’ve made this amazing product even better, including giving our customers the new, bigger white meat breast pieces they crave – 20 percent larger.”

"Our name is Kentucky Fried Chicken, but no quick service restaurant chain in America sells more grilled chicken on the bone than KFC. We’re proud of that,” Westrum added.

New Bigger White Meat Breast Pieces

Packed with flavor, Kentucky Grilled Chicken is marinated and seasoned with a savory blend of secret herbs and spices and slow-grilled to juicy perfection by real cooks in each of KFC’s thousands of restaurants coast-to-coast. The cooking process includes a blend of spices that is proprietary to KFC and uses custom-designed, patented ovens, making it KFC’s second secret recipe. In fact, the original copy of the KGC secret recipe is kept on an encrypted computer flash drive and safely stored in the high-security KFC vault – right next to Colonel Sanders’ handwritten Original Recipe.

Summertime Meals Featuring Kentucky Grilled Chicken

A Meal for one? Kentucky Grilled Chicken is a quick, tasty and non-fried option for lunch or dinner on-the-go, featuring home-style side items and a buttermilk biscuit.

Feeding a crowd? KFC’s famous bucket meals let consumers mix and match Kentucky Grilled Chicken with the Colonel’s Original Recipe^® or Extra Crispy^™ chicken, for a meal sure to satisfy the tastes of any family’s pickiest eaters. (Kentucky Grilled Chicken available at participating KFC^® restaurants. Prices may vary. Tax extra.)

Visit www.kfc.com for more information on Kentucky Grilled Chicken and KFC’s menu.

About KFC

KFC Corporation, based in Louisville, Ky., is the world’s most popular chicken restaurant chain specializing in Original Recipe®, Extra Crispy™, Kentucky Grilled Chicken® and Crispy Strips with home-style sides, Hot Wings, and freshly made chicken sandwiches including the Double Down™ and the Doublicious™. There are more than 15,000 KFC outlets in 109 countries and territories around the world serving some 12 million customers each day. KFC Corporation is a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc., Louisville, Ky. (NYSE: YUM.) For more information, visit www.kfc.com. Follow KFC on Facebook (www.facebook.com/KFC) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/kfc_colonel).

About Colonel Sanders

The Kentucky Fried Chicken concept was pioneered by Colonel Harland Sanders (1890-1980), whose cooking career began at age six. Sanders held jobs ranging from streetcar conductor to insurance salesman, but his cooking skills were a constant throughout his life. In 1930, Sanders operated a service station in Corbin, Ky., and filled the stomachs of hungry travelers who stopped in to fill up their gas tanks. Sanders soon moved his restaurant across the street when he could no longer keep up with the demand from travelers who he had been feeding at his kitchen table. In 1935, the Kentucky Governor made Sanders an honorary Kentucky Colonel for his contributions to the state’s cuisine. Over the next decade, the Colonel perfected his secret blend of 11 herbs and spices and the basic cooking technique still used at KFC today. When Sanders was 65, a new interstate highway forced the closure of his restaurant and he was left with only his recipe for fried chicken and a $105 Social Security check. The Colonel hit the road and struck handshake deals with restaurant owners who agreed to sell his fried chicken. What began as a dream fueled by the Original Recipe, a no-quit attitude and a Social Security check grew into the world’s largest chicken restaurant chain. Until he passed away in 1980 at the age of 90, the Colonel still traveled 250,000 miles a year visiting KFC restaurants around the world.

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