Mao Xindong likes KFC's new look. The 33-year-old technology researcher, who dines at the fast-food chain at least once a week, is impressed by the makeover at an outlet here. "It looks much better than other ones," he said.

Natural stone What sets it apart are artsy posters, rows of green plants and more spacious tables. KFC's owner, Yum Brands, is hoping that a more upscale dining experience, unveiled roughly a month ago, will lure back customers driven away by food safety scares and fierce competition.

The U.S. fast-food giant by the end of June had revamped 130 of its KFC outlets in China. It will also introduce free Wi-Fi in almost half of the country's 4,600 KFCs this year, already a fairly ubiquitous service at shopping malls and rival restaurant chains.

Could these efforts restore the shine of China's largest fast-food chain by revenue?

Warren Liu, former China vice president at Yum Brands and author of the book "KFC in China: Secret Recipe for Success," said these measures would "do little, if anything, to rebuild consumer confidence in food safety."

The latest blow to KFC came last month when a Chinese TV station revealed a food supplier was passing along expired and spoiled chicken meat. KFC was among the producer's client chains.

The probe into Shanghai Husi Food, the Chinese subsidiary of OSI Group in the U.S., had a "significant" impact on sales, a Yum Brands representative said July 30. Private equity research firm JL Warren Capital estimates that KFC's China sales in the third quarter will be around 15% lower than their 2012 peak.

Even before the Husi scandal, Colonel Sanders' fried chicken had been losing its allure in China. According to Liu's book, the number of KFCs grew at a 50% annual clip for the 18 years after the first outlet opened near Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

The Husi investigation revived memories of the December 2012 probe into excessive levels of antibiotics found in some KFC chicken products in China. That triggered a 41% decline in sales in January 2013 and a 40% year-on-year fall in Yum Brands' China net profit in the first quarter of 2013. KFC barely had time to recover before an outbreak of avian flu in April 2013 made people wary of eating chicken.usb dac

Posted by: felicity520 at 07:25 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 384 words, total size 3 kb.