Kitchen Tour of KFC
By Prakriti Bhat
What began as a small roadside stand in Kentucky is now one of the world’s largest food chains. KFC has been running strong in India with its delectable menu which caters to the Indian palate too. Breakfast, lunch or dinner, KFC always fits in. However, a lot of care and hard work goes into the delight that you have while munching on their burgers and crispy chicken. KFC believes in complete transparency and thus comes the idea of a kitchen tour. One of the most important parameters for a successful food chain is maintaining hygienic conditions. And one can check this by asking for a kitchen tour from the manager.
Recently, the outlet near Sector-9 Dwarka metro station organized a kitchen tour for food bloggers. I was excited to see how they whip up those fingerlickin’ good dishes. The management is quite particular about hygiene. All KFC staff members are required to wash their hands with an antimicrobial hand wash for 20 seconds following which they have to use a hand sanitizer. The taps are hands free which further prevents any contamination. We went through the same procedyre and after this we were given kitchen caps before entering the main cooking area.
Fresh chicken, 100% farm bred, is used for all the dishes. There were several gigantic fryers, all in the process of frying chicken at a temperature as high as 170°C. They give special attention to veg and non veg segregation with different areas for both and different colour aprons for both cooks. Vegetarian cooks wear a green apron while non vegetarian chefs wear a red apron. Even the walk-in freezer has colour coded handles for this purpose. In the freezer vegetarian ingredients are kept separately and quite far from the non vegetarian ingredients.
For the non veg burgers, chicken is fried on the spot but for vegetarian burgers they use frozen patties which are stored separately. Every batch of chicken has an expiry time. This is specified on a strip of paper attached to the trays. After this specific time, the remaining chicken pieces are disposed off. No two batches are mixed together. We were then taken to the Krushers station. Mr. Amit, who was our tour guide, showed that KFC prepares its own ice and utmost care is taken to prevent contamination. Ice can be withdrawn only after using a sanitizer and wearing gloves. The ice is scooped out using a sanitized scooper.
After the kitchen tour we feasted on dishes from their menu. KFC India has taken care to meet the demands of our ever growing need for change and thus, the inclusion of dishes like Fiery grill chicken, egg wrap and egg burger which are specific to Indian tastes. Fiery grill satiates our craving for spicy food while the egg dishes are in keeping with the large number of eggetarians in our country. Chicken Zinger had a huge piece of chicken sitting lazily between the burger buns. In fact all their burgers and wraps are made keeping in mind a single principle- to use of a large piece of chicken as the filling and not just thin fillets or tiny nuggets. The popcorn chicken is quite popular among the kids for its flavoursome little chunks while the hot and crispy chicken is their signature dish. Cool it all with their Krushers like Mojito and feel blessed!
You can ask the store manager for a kitchen tour anytime.
