KFC cuts queues to keep Japan's fried chicken Christmas custom alive

KFC Holdings Japan

14/12/2021 22:00

TOKYO, Dec 15 (Reuters) - A long queue of patrons running
out the door of nearly every KFC has been a perennial Christmas
sight in Japan but COVID-19 social distancing rules that
discourage lines and place strict conditions for dining-in are
threatening the custom.  
    This year, KFC Holdings Japan  8773.T , the domestic
licensor of the Yum! Brands Inc  YUM.N  franchise, is nudging
customers to order online and then pick up their chicken at a
certain time, rather than forming up in the traditional queues.
    The run-up to Christmas is the company's biggest sales week
and it hopes the move will help maintain those revenues, which
fell last year from a record, and let customers keep a tradition
that stretches back to the 1970s. 
    While only around 1% of Japan's population is Christian, the
holiday's commercial aspects have been embraced.
    Company lore says the Christmas campaign was inspired by
foreign customers in Japan who lamented that they could not find
turkey during the holidays. The first "Kentucky for Christmas"
promotion started in 1974, marketed towards couples and
including a bucket of chicken along with a bottle of wine.
    KFC Japan has moved up the start of the campaign this year
and offered price incentives for early birds to comply with the
COVID-19 rules.
    "As an infection countermeasure, we're spacing out
reservations to try to limit as much as possible the times when
people are bunched together," said company spokesman Tetsuya
Noguchi.
    Customers have seemingly embraced the change, even seeing
making the reservations as a sign of maturity. 
    "I made a reservation for Kentucky yesterday, so I don't
think I'll have to run around looking for chicken this
Christmas," Rise Ito, a 24-year old musician from Tokyo wrote on
Twitter. "I've grown up since last year!"
    KFC Japan's Christmas sales in 2019 reached a record 7.1
billion yen ($62.5 million), according to research house Shared
Research, but revenue dipped in 2020 to 6.9 billon yen, amid the
imposition of social distancing measures and a wave of COVID-19
cases.
    Since the promotion began, the company has given out
commemorative plates and statues of KFC founder Colonel Harland
Sanders dressed as Santa Claus. 
    Other companies have gotten in on the chicken tradition,
with convenience stores chains Seven & I Holdings and FamilyMart
Co offering their own holiday platters. 
    KFC's market entry in Japan in the early 1970s and its
Christmas push were neatly timed to a shift in the nation's
dining culture, said Eric C. Rath, a University of Kansas
professor who researches the topic.
    "Dining out was becoming much more frequent for families and
young people, especially young women," he said.   

($1 = 113.6000 yen)

 (Reporting by Rocky Swift; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
 ((rocky.swift@thomsonreuters.com;))