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Yum! Brands was named by TIME as one of the best companies shaping U.S. leaders. With a leadership score of 91 out of 100, Yum! Brands ranked #32 out of the 150 organizations on the Best Companies for Future Leaders list. TIME and data firm Statista analyzed the resumes of 2,000 of the country’s award-winning academics, political figures and CEOs of the largest companies to determine which private sector companies appear most often on their journeys to the top.
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KFC U.K. said on Wednesday that it has an agreement to buy more than 200 locations of its brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland from its largest franchisee there, the EG Group. The Louisville, Ky.-based chicken chain already operates 50 locations in the country and says the acquisition “represents a significant opportunity to accelerate” its growth in the market, which it says is “large and growing.” KFC has 1,040 restaurants in the UK and Ireland. System sales in the market are up 7% this year and same-store sales are up 5%. The number of restaurants in the market has increased by 25% since 2018 and KFC wants to add another 500 locations there by 2030. |
KFC is celebrating the opening of its 1,000th restaurant in India, which is located in Gurgaon’s DLF Cyber Hub and is operated and managed by an all-women team. KFC's first restaurant was launched in India in 1995 and the company now has a presence in over 240 towns and cities.
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| Pizza Hut Australia and WireCo have won the Food and Drink category at The Drum Awards for Content. The Drum shared the award-winning case study for the State of Origin campaign. |
KFC Spain has launched a new fragrance named Eau D’uardo. Inspired by a viral meme created by the company in 2021, the scent comes in a chicken drumstick-shaped bottle. The limited run of 25,000 bottles will be sold through the chain’s app or restaurants in Spain.
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The Habit Burger Grill is launching its first Mobile Pickup Lane at its new location in Garden Grove, California, which opens on December 13. Guests can place their orders in advance through The Habit mobile app or website and choose the Mobile Pickup Lane option. The new restaurant marks the company's second location in the city of Garden Grove.
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| How a shy paperboy became The Habit CMO |
| Early in his career, The Habit Burger Grill's Chief Marketing Officer Jack Hinchliffe faced a crossroads: take a desired promotion on the sales team or follow his passion with a lateral move into marketing. In the latest edition of "How I Got Here," find out how staying true to himself and trusting his gut at that crucial moment paid off for Hinchliffe and discover other moments that shaped his career as a marketing executive. |
| Did you know about these Pizza Hut job training programs? |
Around the world, Pizza Hut is fueling job training programs through its Equal Slice for Everyone social purpose framework. In partnership with Yum!’s Unlocking Opportunity Initiative, they’re changing the future for women in South Africa, young adults in Brazil and Sri Lanka, and RGMs in El Salvador. Watch to learn more about how the brand is making a difference in the communities it calls home. |  | (For Yum! Eyes Only) |
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At McDonald's investor conference on Wednesday, the company announced that it will open ten CosMc’s restaurants through the first half of next year. Nine of the stores will be in Texas and one will open in Chicago. The company will study the results for at least a year before determining whether to expand the concept. In addition, the company said it plans to open nearly 10,000 McDonald’s restaurants worldwide over the next four years, including 900 new stores in the U.S, which would bring its total to 50,000 stores. McDonald's also said its chicken sales have now reached $25 billion annually, on par with beef, and are growing fast. It plans to bring its McCrispy sandwich to nearly all global markets by 2025.
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McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski was interviewed by Fortune about its use of AI to help accelerate growth, its expansion in China and the focus on a smaller group of core menu items. “The benefit of selling a brand versus selling a product is that it's not just about a bunch of functional things. There are emotional benefits attached to each of those brands,” he said. "And when you're selling a brand that's as unique as a Happy Meal or a Big Mac or a McFlurry, there really isn't a substitute for that."
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McDonald's will open its first beverage-centric concept, CosMc’s, this week in Bolingbrook, Illinois. CosMc’s menu offer five beverage categories – Signature Galactic Boosts, iced teas and lemonades, slushes and frappes, brews and fountain and bottled drinks – as well as sandwiches, bites, baked goods, soft serve and “From the McDonald’s Universe.” “The big story isn’t about CosMc’s per se. The big story is what it says about McDonald’s and its potential," CEO Chris Kempczinski said. “We’ll continue to explore other ideas that can take advantage of our unique combination of assets, opening new growth opportunities and extending our brand into new areas.”
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The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in Seattle heard Starbucks' challenge to a National Labor Relations Board decision that said the company must recognize and bargain with the union that represents about 100 workers. The panel seemed skeptical of Starbucks' claims that an election won by a union at a Seattle store was invalid because it was held via mail ballot during the COVID-19 pandemic and seemed to agree with the board's decision.
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| In December, Starbucks will give its rewards members 50% off any drink purchased on Thursdays for the rest of the month. Customers will be able to get one discounted drink from noon until 6 p.m. |
Peter McGuinness, CEO of Impossible Foods, said that "food tech" positioning and leaning into sustainability as a key selling point has created challenges for plant-based meat brands. “So the way to get meat eaters to actually buy your product is not to piss them off, vilify them, insult them and judge them,” he said. “We need to go from insulting to inviting, which is a hell of a journey.” McGuinness intends to “relaunch Impossible in a very inclusive way,” emphasizing what it stands for rather than what it’s battling against.
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According to the National Restaurant Association, 86% of the respondents who intend to buy from restaurants will purchase sides instead of their whole holiday meals from a dining place, while 66% said they'll buy the complete meal from a restaurant. Eighty-nine percent said they’ll get their entrees from commercial kitchens and 74% indicated that’s where they’ll buy whatever appetizers they serve. “The data also reveal that takeout and delivery remain critical components of the guest experience for every age group,” association CEO Michelle Korsmo said.
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Portillo’s CFO Michelle Hook discussed how the company is choosing its locations as it expands outside of Chicago. “We can't be the only draw to an area,” she said at the Morgan Stanley Global Consumer & Retail Conference. “So we need to be building our restaurants where people are gathering, where they're congregating...We need to have good visibility." Portillo’s has recently expanded beyond the Midwest to Arizona, Florida and Texas, and the “vast majority” of its growth over the next couple of years will be in the Sun Belt, she said.
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At the Morgan Stanley Global Consumer & Retail Conference, Krispy Kreme executives shared that it is narrowing its focus on the road to 75,000 global points of access — up from its initial goal of 20,000. CEO Josh Charlesworth spoke about a possible partnership expansion with McDonald's to help accelerate the growth. “We're in advanced discussions to consider a rollout and because we're in those advanced discussions…why would we be looking at anything else?” Charlesworth said. “This is a significant growth lever for us."
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Restaurant Dive took a look back at how IHOP, Denny’s, Red Robin, TGI Fridays, Chili’s and Bar Louie updated their menus to attract more customers to new or expanded dining occasions. These menu revamps are driving higher same-store sales. IHOP, for example, boasted a 2% uptick in same-stores sales during the third quarter after it rolled out its biggest menu revamp in its history in April.
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McDonald’s has partnered with Google to build out a chatbot that will help its restaurant workers get quick answers on questions. Called “Ask Pickles,” the bot will be trained on everything from manuals to data generated by equipment at restaurants. The test is one of the initiatives McDonald’s is implementing as it rolls out Google Cloud’s data and generative artificial intelligence tools in restaurants around the world. The two companies will also work on uses for generative AI.
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CaliExpress by Flippy, a fully automated restaurant created by Cali Group, Miso Robotics and PopID, is expected to open this month in Pasadena, California. The restaurant uses autonomous grill and fry stations that use AI and robotics to cook burgers and fries. Customers order by creating and signing into a PopID account on digital kiosks. The use of technology will allow the restaurant to offer more expensive wagyu beef blends “at price points competitive with other premium burgers using standard meat," the companies said.
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Starbucks, T-Mobile, Comcast and Johnson & Johnson are among the dozen companies that have signed up for the new "4+1 Commitment: The Formula for Military Spouse Success" initiative. The pledge calls for companies to commit to at least one of four employment policies, such as remote work or paid leave during Permanent Change of Station periods, that are considered friendly to military spouses. Organizers are aiming to get 1,000 companies to make the pledge by the end of 2024.
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