Grilled or fried?
That’s the burning question at KFC. In 2009, KFC added grilled chicken to it menu. The item racked up an impressive $1 billion in sales in its first year. But a coalition of franchisees remains unimpressed. The coalition is suing KFC corporate parent Yum! Brands for taking the focus away from fried chicken and devoting the bulk of its ad budget to promoting the upstart grilled chicken. The coalition says KFC management ignored its pleas to stay true to the colonel's original recipe, reports the Washington Post. KFC "appears to believe that the future of KFC lies with grilled chicken rather than fried Original Recipe or Extra Crispy chicken products," say the franchisees. Yum! Brands shot back, calling the lawsuit "baseless” and saying it “fully expects to win the suit and minimize the waste of time and money spent on it.” Sounds like a high-stakes game of chicken to us.
A sh--ty investment. How bad is the economy? It’s so bad, people are willing to pick up poop for a living. Actually, for Pet Butler franchisees, it’s a pretty good living. Why? Because even if they have no job, no food and no prospects, pet owners are still happy to pay Pet Butler $15 per week to rid their yards of stinky, unsightly animal excrement. Pet Butler founder Matt Boswell says the firm is rapidly growing and has immediate plans to expand. The company currently has 126 franchises in the U.S. and is the process of opening 12 new locations in the San Francisco Bay Area. New franchises cost about $60,000. Seems kinda high to us. But if water is the new oil, then poop must be the new platinum.
Truth in advertising. It’s still early, but we’ve already got a top contender for best commercial of the year. In its new TV spot, Dominos admits something that everybody already knows. Their pizza sucks. "Worst excuse for pizza I ever had," says a company executive as he looks into the camera and reads a customer comment. “The sauce tastes like ketchup,” recites another employee, on the verge of tears. "Domino's pizza crust to me is like cardboard," says a woman from a focus-group panel. Ah, truer words were never spoken. So what’s the point of all this self-flagellation? Domino’s new CEO told the Associated Press said the chain had no choice but to be honest about its old recipe pizza if it had any hope of winning back customers. The company recently rolled out an entirely new pizza recipe. It may not be any better than the old version, but at least the TV commercials are a vast improvement.
