If you are someone who pays close attention to commercials, you may have noticed something different about the KFC ads as of late. They are no longer going to include chicken tenders in them.
The reasoning actually makes all of the sense in the world when you find out why. KFC is not here to taunt us by taking the chicken tenders away, that is for sure.
As it turns out, this is not KFC’s fault. At the moment, they are still serving chicken tenders because they have enough supply to meet the demand. They would love to promote it because it is one of the most popular items on the menu.
“In terms of advertising and promotion we’re going to focus on things we have abundant quantities of,” KFC U.S. President Kevin Hochman said to Bloomberg in a recent interview.
KFC is making a simple decision here. Since they have enough chicken tenders to get by in the meantime, they do not want to trigger an actual shortage. That’s why they are going out of their way not to advertise the chicken tenders. Since KFC has plenty of bone-in chicken to provide, they would rather emphasize this in their advertisement strategies.
The national labor shortage has affected a number of supply chains and KFC is not immune to these concerns. Chicken farms are always included, which affects both restaurants and grocery stores. It takes far more time to process chicken tenders since it is so difficult to remove all of the bones in a timely manner. That’s why bone-in chicken is easier to deal with and more readily available.
Now that there is a chicken sandwich boom taking place all across the country, Popeye’s, McDonald’s, and Burger King are all taking advantage. KFC has its own edition but they have been forced to take a step back because of the supply chain issues. Restaurants are also forced to endure major price hikes when it comes to farmed birds, as the supply chain concerns have affected pricing as well.
Duff’s Famous Wings is about to experience a 99 percent increase in price. We shudder to think of what is happening elsewhere.
“The chicken wing farms in America, they’re having trouble retaining and recruiting employees,” said Greg Duell, Duff’s co-owner, in the Bloomberg interview. “When that happens, they can’t process the birds fast enough, they have to feed them more, the feed costs have gone up, the birds are getting bigger, and they can’t process and get them out.”