How Chicken Became An American Obsession

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[Music] you're almost kind of a little bit of a almost a lifestyle brand if you will you come in into some experience are you worried about within a chicken nugget yes um sometimes no i don't but i highly doubt it's top chicken pink slime reality tv series happening in real time with real companies and real dollars in real delicious food at stake it's two pieces of bread a piece of fried chicken dill pickles and a squirt of mayo who would have thought such a humble sandwich could set up a fast food

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war in fast food chick-fil-a has long dominated the chicken sandwich this simple sandwich is part of what propelled chick-fil-a to its spot as the third biggest fast food chain in the u.s despite being closed on sundays chick-fil-a's race to the top has scared even mcdonald's whose u.s franchisees asked corporate to develop a worthy competitor to chick-fil-a sandwich in the summer of 2019 a formidable opponent to chick-fil-a emerged and it wasn't mcdonald's popeye's louisiana kitchen

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introduced its crispy chicken sandwich and conflict started to brew the sandwich challenged chick-fil-a's dominance in the chicken sandwich category and fast food's biggest names got into the battle popeyes sold out of the chicken sandwich in about two weeks during that time analysts say other chicken chains including chick-fil-a lost customers to popeyes americans are ordering and eating more chicken now than ever before in a highly competitive industry like fast food brands are racing to stake their claim chains that

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have long relied on chicken like chick-fil-a and popeyes are in prime position for victory others like hamburger focused mcdonald's have missed out on dollars spent by chicken hungry fans one thing is clear fast food customers want chicken sandwiches and the trend doesn't seem to be slowing now the big chains are duking it out to deliver despite supply chain issues and fierce competition part of chick-fil-a's brand messaging has been that he didn't invent the chicken just the chicken sandwich

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but american studies professor psyche williams forsen says people have been eating this type of sandwich as long as they have been eating bread and poultry there's evidence that lots of early colonial households who could afford the ingredients to make bread and would have any kind of bird would eat bread and bird together how they did that you know it's not necessarily known and of course on through the centuries we end up with what we know to be the sandwich

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and the chicken sandwich at that and competition around the chicken sandwich isn't exactly new either ebony magazine searched black newspaper archives and found ads for the chicken sandwich going back to as early as 1936. chick-fil-a's founder s truett kathy invented the chain's original chicken sandwich in 1964. that sandwich was made of a boneless chicken breast breaded and fried in peanut oil and served on a toasted buttered bun with pickles the first chick-fil-a opened in 1967 and the chain has been closed on sundays since

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then despite that chick-fil-a is the third biggest restaurant chain in the u.s by system-wide sales and reported more than 10 billion dollars in revenue in 2018. for comparison popeye's pulled in 3.7 billion dollars in sales in 2018 making it the 25th largest u.s chain when popeye's parent company restaurant brands international quietly discussed a new menu item in its may 2019 investor day it didn't know that the product's launched would cause such a frenzy it was the first time in its nearly

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50-year history that popeyes offered a chicken sandwich that was available nationwide in the past its menu tended to focus more on bone-in products this sandwich is a white meat breast fillet ham battered and breaded in a buttermilk coating served on a brioche bun there is one version with regular mayonnaise and another with spicy mayo popeyes rolled out its sandwich on august 12 2019 one week later this sandwich set off a virtual confrontation between some of the biggest names in fast food

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chick-fil-a tweeted an equation suggesting that its sandwich was the original and the best popeyes had a simple but pointed response to chick-fil-a y'all good their check-in prompted other chicken brands to get into the conversation soon wendy's and shake shack jumped into the twitter feud too this is what people love to see they love to see kind of folks going at it and and uh you know in a fun and competitive way of course but this is the reality tv series happening in real time

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with real companies and real dollars in real delicious food at stake those tweets set off a social media firestorm and nearly doubled popeye's twitter followers from a hundred thousand two hundred and eighty thousand a marketing group estimated that popeye's received over 65 65.1 million dollars in equivalent advertising value from media mentions between august 12th and august 27th the sandwich's impact was bigger than just raising popeye's profile with consumers it was also a boon to popeye's bottom line

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thanks in part to the chicken sandwich sales at stores opened more than a year grew by 9.7 percent in the third quarter of 2019 compared to 0.5 growth in q3 of 2018. one analyst estimated that popeye sold about a thousand chicken sandwiches a day and that the sandwich accounted for about 30 of sales while it was available at least after about two weeks with the chicken sandwich on the menu popeyes around the country started selling out it simply ran out of chicken fillets fans started posting pictures of handwritten sold out

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signs on popeye's doors and drive-through menus popeyes was even hit with a lawsuit by an angry customer for selling out of the sandwich i said you saw popeye's market share more than double and then you did see a dip in foot traffic share at chick-fil-a mcdonald's burger king and wendy's you know the the actual infamous y'all good tweet happened just as wendy's was launching their spicy chicken sandwich and and just as burger king was launching the impossible whopper nationally so it sort of took the steam out of those promotions for for a few short days but

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the positive impact of popeye sandwich wasn't limited to just that chain the third quarter is the most important part of the year for fast food companies because it includes the summer months a crucial selling season it was a very successful third quarter for for fast food in general i think it was probably the most the fastest sales growth in several years and the chicken sandwich has some responsibility for that sector-wide growth hype around popeye's national release of its chicken sandwich actually benefited its competitors chicken-focused fast food restaurants like kfc and chick-fil-a saw traffic spike in late

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august 2019 over a typical summer weekend popeyes chick-fil-a zaxby's and kfc would get about 8.3 million visitors according to foot traffic's analytics platform placer ai but at the peak of the chicken sandwich war the chains had 10.1 million visitors over a weekend and now popeyes has brought its sandwich back its nationwide launch on november 3rd 2019 saw huge crowds traffic at popeyes that day rolls almost 300 percent higher than normal

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one analyst estimated that busy popeye's locations sold up to 1500 chicken sandwiches per store every day for the first 10 days the sandwich was back effectively doubling sales volume at those stores and popeye's competitors are racing to keep up in july 2019 mcdonald's u.s franchisees asked the company to add a southern style chicken sandwich to rival chick-fil-as franchisees said mcnuggets and mcchicken sandwiches weren't enough to compete in the premium chicken sandwich category

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on an earnings call mcdonald said it missed out on some business in chicken in december 2019 mcdonald's started testing a crispy chicken sandwich officially entering the chicken sandwich wars well they said on their conference call that they actually lost share during in the chicken segment but they gained share of the burger segment so clearly this is a this is an issue for them that they're looking to correct the franchisees have been asking for a premium chicken sandwich for some time you know the sandwich isn't likely to be hand breaded the way hand battered and

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hand breaded the way it is at popeyes so mcdonald's will have to find a way to win on on their core advantages which is speed convenience and value the war is far from over and if i were to make a longer term prediction i would not predict that chick-fil-a would be a loser in that chicken war overall there's so much uh momentum behind the growth of that company and so much brand equity that it just resonates with consumers young old um and everywhere in between in a lot of ways

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for decades hamburgers have been american sandwich of choice on fast food menus now chicken sandwiches are stealing some of the spotlight chicken sandwiches remain number two but they are gaining ground with consumers faster than burgers are according to market research firm npd group for the year ended february 2019 4 billion chicken sandwich servings were ordered at us restaurants during the same time period burgers were more popular with 8.6 billion ordered but chicken sandwich orders were up 4

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while burger orders stayed flat on average diners still purchase burgers more frequently than they purchase chicken sandwiches but burger makers shouldn't rest too easy in general chicken consumption is on the rise from 1960 to 2018 per capita chicken consumption has risen 235 percent to 93.8 pounds a year during the same time period per capita consumption of beef has fallen 9.6 1991 was the last year people ate more

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beef than chicken in 2018 americans ate about 94 pounds of chicken compared to 57 pounds of beef that's a pretty dramatic difference in that you know that's a reversal from 40 50 years ago this was not always the case and it goes to show what technological progress and changes and consumption habits those combination of factors can do to change our diets analysts point to three main factors that have contributed to higher chicken consumption health concerns technological advances

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and a growing population the national institutes of health and the world health organization have linked red meat consumption to heart disease and cancer some have pointed to white meat like chicken and fish as a healthier alternative technological advances have also made it possible to produce larger chickens more quickly and the price of chicken has fallen in recent years if you look at what's happened to the price of chicken relative to say beef it's fallen by about 45 over the last 20 years so today uh chicken is about a third of

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the price of beef at the retail level similar things happen for pork so today chicken is about half the price of pork but in the chicken sandwich war not all chicken is created equal some pieces are better for sandwiches than others most fast food chains rely on breast meat for its sandwiches which is typically more expensive than chicken wings or thighs fast food restaurants have offered chicken items for years but analysts say this social media feud attracted a new generation of consumers certainly the generation that follows social media

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that might might go into a fast casual restaurant you know maybe your chipotle consumer or your shake shack consumer doesn't really look too traditional fast food as having a you know high quality up leveled experience and so by having a product that is of that um you know that that rivals the the chicken shack will bring in a generation that's probably never eaten a big mac before burger orders may be flat but despite attracting a new audience analysts don't think chicken sandwiches

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will pull ahead of burgers anytime soon [Music] if you grew up in the united states in the last 70 years chances are you've had a chicken nugget whether your nuggets came in a mcdonald's box or from the freezer aisle chicken nuggets have long been a staple for american families but have you ever eaten one cooked from scratch at home we did an experiment inspired by celebrity chef jamie oliver if people saw how chicken nuggets were made would they still want to eat them do you know what's in a chicken nugget

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no are you worried about what's in a chicken nugget yes i am sometimes no i don't but i highly doubt it's top chicken pink slime no that's why i don't eat them very often because it's kind of i think it's like mystery meat i know it's like just a bunch of chicken cut up and different like maybe bones are in there we acknowledge the makeup of chicken nuggets is questionable the treats history has been marred by a bad press yet americans ate 2.3 billion servings

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of them in restaurants last year however demand for chicken nuggets at fast food outlets and restaurants has stagnated experts say that's because the chicken nugget isn't a huge profit driver and restaurants aren't likely to innovate around them restaurants only have so much room on their menu and as a low cost item nuggets aren't a big money maker customers expect to be able to buy large quantities of nuggets at super low prices and the future doesn't look better for chicken nuggets growth their menu penetration is expected to drop by 5.4 percent in the next four years over

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the past 10 years nuggets have dropped off the kids menu by 10 while chicken tenders have increased by 25 so why is demand for nuggets flatlining first we have to understand what made them so popular in the first place today we can't help but associate chicken nuggets with mcdonald's famous for selling large mcnugget portions at low prices credit for inventing chicken nuggets often goes to the golden arches but it turns out you have a scientist to thank for your chicken nugget creations mcdonald's introduced chicken nuggets in 1983 years after a researcher had laid

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the groundwork for them in the 1950s a professor at cornell university invented a variety of processed chicken products including chicken hot dogs and chicken nuggets to convince americans to eat more chicken his work was for scientific research not commercial products and he didn't expect chicken nuggets to take off when the chicken nugget came out in the 1950s they weren't too popular he said after world war ii processed foods were seen as safer and more reliable food processing methods were developed during the wars to make sure soldiers on the front lines were fed

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after the war companies had to find another market for their new technology attitude toward food processing has changed dramatically in the past 30 40 years maybe when it was first introduced people saw it as being sanitary because human hands weren't you know touching the food they saw it as efficient because you could get food directly from the field into a can or frozen and that was supposedly you know going to lock in the flavor in 1983

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after the government recommended people eat less red meat mcdonald's introduced the battered and fried chicken nugget it's mcnugget mania ad campaign casts the nugget as a cheap delicious snack to share you can't resist them moms love them kids crunch them dad brings them home for the family chicken nuggets became popular because they were inexpensive uniform and easy to eat regardless of whether your nugget comes from the drive-in or the frozen section you usually know what to expect people love to eat food with their hands

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a trend abbala calls nuggetization nuggetization also hides the origin of the food when you eat a chicken nugget you really don't know what it is the fact that nuggets don't look like an animal makes them more popular most people don't want to be reminded that their food used to moo or cluck it's not for ethical reasons or because people are eating less meat or simply just squeamish mcdonald's released its nuggets with three signature sauces barbecue sweet sour and hot mustard the product development director thought a variety of dipping flavors would make mcnuggets more appealing to customers they were

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right customers love nuggetized easily dippable foods because sauce adds another layer of customization to your order we've been eating chicken nuggets for years but three main factors are working against them health concerns bad press and new competition consumer attitudes about health are changing processed foods are falling out of favor as consumers look for more natural alternatives very broadly across all consumers is a what we call the pursuit of purity in our food which is to say we're looking for food that's real food

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that's authentic food that's minimally processed in 2010 reports of chicken nuggets made from pink goop swept to the internet a photo rumored to have been taken inside a plant making food for mcdonald's surfaced and people said it showed mechanically separated chicken a product made by forcing bones with edible tissue attached through a sieve edible tissue includes whatever is left on the bone including blood vessels cartilage and skin mcdonald's said the photo doesn't show how it makes nuggets due to changing

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consumer preferences it switched to using 100 white meat in nuggets in 2003. while mcdonald's promises to use 100 white meat it doesn't state what percentage of the nugget is meat in response to the pink goop photo mcdonald's released a video from a mcnuggets supplier in canada the video shows employees making a paste from chicken breast and skin that will become nuggets mcdonald's didn't respond to requests to comment for this video but their earnings calls show consumers like the switch to white meat

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there isn't much regulation about what can and cannot be in a nugget go to any frozen food aisle and you'll find gluten-free chicken nuggets breast meat chicken nuggets and even veggie nuggets here's how the us department of agriculture defines nuggets nuggets are irregularly shaped usually bite size meat and or poultry products which are usually breaded and deep fat fried and intended to be used as finger foods there are three types solid meat nuggets ground meat nuggets and nuggets made from ground meat with

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additives the labeling rules are different for all three but one rule is constant any breaded nugget product can be no more than 30 breading nuggets made from solid pieces of meat can be labeled simply as nuggets the process to make nuggets that are ground meat like what we made earlier must be clear on the packaging for instance chicken nugget chopped and formed nuggets made from ground meat with additives like binders or water can be used to describe a product but needs more detail the usda says breaded

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nugget-shaped chicken patties is proper labeling the usda's labeling guidelines don't specify just how much meat a nugget must contain in 2013 researchers from the university of mississippi studied the composition of two nuggets and found that the nuggets contained more fat than meat the researchers got the nuggets from two national food chains but didn't identify which it's also worth noting that two nuggets is a very small sample size the bad press for nuggets didn't end with this study or with reports of pink goo

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a federal judge called mcnuggets a mcfrankenstein creation in 2003 after a group of teens claimed mcdonald's food was making them obese earlier this year some of the country's biggest producers recalled over 120 000 pounds of chicken nuggets consumers found bits of plastic or wood in the nuggets or noticed that they were labeled incorrectly and finally there is another chicken product kids love chicken strips while data found the chicken nugget servings in restaurants were slumping

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slightly servings of chicken strips were actually on the rise in 2018 when compared to 2017. researchers say consumers aren't swapping nuggets for strips but that the categories appeal to different groups families with young children are more likely to purchase nuggets while adults or families with teens buy more strips strips are seen as an upgraded or more wholesome version of chicken nuggets there's nothing new or innovative about a chicken strip it's been around for a long time but anytime you take something that the

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american consumer already loves and you innovate around it or you elevate the form in some way it creates opportunities for growth so we've seen a lot of people doing this everybody from you know the world's largest restaurant chain mcdonald's has a premium uh chicken strip offering now to regional uh chains that are springing up like raising canes or zaxbees tempting consumers to buy a more premium product like a strip means a higher margin for restaurants i think chicken nuggets sort of have their their home in fast food

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and as um parents have more educated about you know better quality proteins um and they're trading at more to fast casual restaurants i think you're seeing more of a tendency for people to move to chicken strips chicken tenders which is something that kids really like and honestly you know people of all generations kind of like chicken strips a low birth rate could also have something to do with nuggets stagnation in 2017 the us birth rate hit a 30-year

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low americans aren't having enough babies to replace the population and population growth increasingly relies on immigration data shows that chicken strips show up on restaurant menus more often than chicken nuggets do with a higher menu penetration of 14.2 percent however over time chicken strip menu penetration has also declined and at a faster rate than nuggets which begs the question are consumers over them both

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are chicken strips really a threat to chicken nuggets place at the top of the processed meat food chain even though strips are gaining traction there's no reason nuggets and strips can't thrive together at restaurants americans still ate a whopping 2.3 billion nuggets last year compared to 1.5 billion strips so don't worry nugget lovers there will still be nuggets to dip chick-fil-a it's a fast food chain with chicken sandwiches said to be so good

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even mcdonald's wants to steal them and it has a reputation so controversial entire cities have banned the restaurant from their airports critics say chick-fil-a has a history of supporting and donating millions of dollars to anti-lgbtq organizations which has drawn the ire of lawmakers and civilians alike chick-fil-a's values are not chicago values but it also has its share of arden supporters whatever you think of the company's

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politics chick-fil-a's sales are on a tear as of june 2019 it is the third biggest restaurant chain in the u.s by system-wide sales and it generates the most sales per store of any fast food restaurant in the country the ascent is so rapid that even mcdonald's and popeyes are taking note in july 2019 mcdonald's franchise owners demanded the company add a southern style chicken sandwich to its menu in order to keep

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pace with chick-fil-a a month later popeyes debuted its own chicken sandwich on a buttered roll with pickles the first to be sold by the chain nationwide chick-fil-a is also eating market share from giants in the chicken category like kfc and wing stop so how is it that a restaurant that's ensnared in controversy and closed on sundays is next in line to overtake starbucks and mcdonald's [Music] it all started in atlanta georgia where

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chick-fil-a's founder s truett kathy was raised and where the company is now headquartered kathy grew up watching his mother prepare chicken in traditional southern fashion in 1926 the 25 year old and his younger brother cobbled together about ten thousand dollars to open a diner called dwarf grill legend has it that's where kathy invented chick-fil-a's original chicken sandwich fried in peanut oil and served on a bun with pickles the menu item

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regularly sold out so in 1967 he opened the very first chick-fil-a in the greenbrier mall in atlanta from the outset kathy implemented a policy still in place to this day all stores would be closed on sundays a devout christian he reasoned that sundays were for spiritual worship kathy carried those christian values with him to chick-fil-a's flagship store which featured an upbeat logo of a bright red chicken kathy said the a of the

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company's name represented grade a chicken he was one of the first to envision putting fast food in malls and as malls began to grow in popularity chick-fil-a was taken along for the ride between 1971 and 1974 chick-fil-a tripled in size expanding into the rest of georgia and the carolinas and continuing through the south and southwest in 1986 chick-fil-a decided to grow beyond malls by opening its first

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free-standing restaurant by 1993 its 500th restaurant had opened but this pushed it into competition with established chicken focused fast food chains like kfc which also opened in the south 15 years before chick-fil-a chick-fil-a didn't have as much money as those companies to spend on advertising so it decided to make a splash another way in 1995 it put up huge billboards on the side of highways in the southeast

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the first billboard featured a pair of cows scrawling eat more chicken to try to get people to stop eating beef the campaign went viral and it worked in 2000 the privately held company hit one billion dollars in sales doubling its performance from when the billboards first debuted it also rose to the third largest fast food chain in the chicken category behind kfc and popeyes that was also the year kathy and his three children signed

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a covenant promising to uphold chick-fil-a's principles the agreement included staying closed on sundays and never taking the company public you know the company culture is very unique and has clearly led to a lot of success and culture it's all interlocked like you pull one strand of it and the whole blanket can unravel and sometimes if a company's public someone might want to pull out a strand

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and might not realize wow that's the strand that could unravel the whole blanket here chick-fil-a's fast-paced growth was also fueled by a few key innovations in its operating structure each franchise is owned by an independent operator who usually has just one unit and no other business ventures a model that's still relatively unique in the fast food business this allowed franchise owners to be focused on the restaurant and truly connected to the community employee makeup is another

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differentiator for the brand chick-fil-a has said that two-thirds of chick-fil-a employees have grown up working for the company doing shifts in high school and college and ultimately returning for a career with chick-fil-a after graduating chick-fil-a is extremely selective of who is even allowed to become an operator that structure has created a network of experienced franchise owners who are loyal to the brand it's the main reason why they're successful because they have these people that are in the stores

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every single day they've gone through a heavy training process um uh they believe very strongly in the brand and um they are interacting with customers so uh they are interacting with the employees they are interacting with everybody and and it really works for me the franchise agreement also allows operators to start restaurants for an extremely low cost the initial fee is just ten thousand dollars in comparison the fee at mcdonald's is forty five thousand 000

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and wendy's is 40 000 unburdened by the debt of a large initial fee chick-fil-a franchisee operators are able to put more of their funds into growing and improving their store the closed on sunday policy also applies to the chick-fil-a's operating in stadiums its mercedes-benz location even remained closed when the super bowl was held there in 2019 analysts say the policy comes with a hefty price tag if you do the math i think it works out

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to roughly 1.7 billion dollars in system-wide sales that are lost by being closed on sundays now again that's assuming you just open up on sundays and everything else works normally but they also say being closed might actually help the chain provide better service every employee can look forward to time off no matter how hard they're working monday through saturday and you know sometimes that rest and relaxation can do a person real good

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on top of that you know the guests like they better get to the chick-fil-a restaurant before sunday comes because if they find the time on sunday and they have that craving on sunday and they show up on sunday not getting any food from that chick-fil-a restaurant in 2018 there were 2 352 chick-fil-as in business with 234 in malls 264 on college campuses and 73 at hospitals businesses or airports the culture of chick-fil-a today still

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focuses on the christian values that kathy founded the chain on outside its atlanta headquarters a plaque with chick-fil-a's mission statement still hangs analysts point to the chain's religious backbone as a driving force behind the company's number one rank and customer service for four years from 2015 to 2019. in a 2018 survey of drive-throughs chick-fil-a employees were reported to have smiled 91.4 percent of the time while employees of the next highest chain kfc smiled

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78.5 of the time basically you're starting to see that they're almost kind of a little bit of a almost a lifestyle brand if you will you come in into some experience from the minute you walk in you've got that that fresh-faced kid who's you know greets you thank you you know they're polite they're walking around helping you etc it's beyond just a transaction of food it's an entire experience and i think you're starting to see some of the you know the bigger brands really trying trying you know as

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much as they can to to mimic that and trying to give you an experience chick-fil-a's christian values have also been a source of major controversy in recent years in july 2012 chick-fil-a came under fire after truitt kathy's son and the company's current president dan cathy publicly expressed his views on gay marriage he told the baptist press that he was guilty of supporting the biblical definition of a family unit the comments incited backlash in the form of boycotts

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and lgbt kissings at chick-fil-a restaurants around the country according to a brand satisfaction measurement from yougov the company's rating dropped to its lowest level in two years following the comments the day of dan kathy's first comments chick-fil-a's rating was 65 19 points above average but four days later the chain had fallen to 47. even though the comments hurt the brand's reputation the company's annual sales improved in 2012 the company saw four billion dollars in

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system-wide sales a 13 increase from the 3.6 billion dollars a year earlier it also grew 7.4 in average sales per unit dan cathy said in 2014 that he regretted publicly commenting on gay marriage and that he would stay out of political debates but in 2017 reports revealed the chick-fil-a foundation had donated millions to what critics say are anti-lgbt groups such as donations to the fellowship of christian athletes a

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sports ministry that believes homosexual misconduct is unnatural in the eyes of god again sales remained unharmed chick-fil-a pulled in 8 billion in system-wide sales in 2017 up 15 from the previous year and the company has still not redeemed itself among lgbt supporters during the 2019 pride parade in new york city attendees taped a large x over one of chick-fil-a's store fronts between 2017

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and 2018 system-wide sales improved 12.8 percent from 8 billion to 9 billion its sales per store is higher than any other fast food chain at 4 million mcdonald's generates 2.7 million dollars a unit and in 2019 it became the third largest restaurant chain in america by system-wide sales it surged past wendy's burger king taco bell and subway in just one year since 2007 chick-fil-a has doubled its number of stores to 2400

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restaurants the majority of its restaurants are still in the south and southwest texas for example tops the chart with 391 restaurants while georgia has 218. from its history of store openings however it seems the company is slowly working to expand its foothold in other regions between 2011 and 2018 for example the company grew from having one location in new york to having 17. 25 years ago this was a regional uh concept that was much smaller

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and today you know depending on what source you use it very much is the third biggest restaurant concept in the whole country and they're still underpenetrated some of those heavily populated parts of the country they don't open on sundays at all so they're a big player the chain is also a growing threat to other fast food chains technomic estimates that chick-fil-a tallied over 10 billion dollars in revenue in 2018

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and grew 13.5 percent while mcdonald's grew just 2.5 in july of 2019 a group of mcdonald's franchise owners signed a joint letter asking the company to add a southern style chicken sandwich to its menu chick-fil-a's results demonstrate the power of chicken the board wrote a chicken sandwich at mcdonald's should be our top priority the company is an especially big threat to other chicken focused restaurants between 2009 and 2018 chick-fil-a grew

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from owning 19.3 of the chicken fast food market to 38.5 um their chicken menu doesn't change we are experts in chicken we you know will occasionally give you something additional spicy chicken or like i said fish or whatever whatever it is um but and and i think by being maniacally focused on what they do it allows them to then be focused on all those extras you know the service the atmosphere you know they're not always

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searching for what's that next big lto the just the energy of their brand and what they do day to day is just once again growing their brand from it from the perspective of excellence so is there a ceiling for chick-fil-a truett kathy passed away in 2014 leaving his three children to inherit the company and the 11 billion dollar family fortune dan cathy is now the company's chairman and ceo while his brother bubba is an executive vice president

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the private company declined to comment for this piece and is secretive about its financial information and goals but analysts say that if chick-fil-a manages to maintain its growth there are major regions that the chain has yet to take over chick-fil-a plans to open its first international location in 2019 in toronto and plans to open at least 15 more locations in canada looking ahead they just need to make sure that you know they have the the management infrastructure

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because of you know as any company gets bigger and bigger it just becomes that much more challenging to make sure that the quality of what you're doing uh remains high so if i had to guess will they achieve that yes but there's no 100 certainty uh in the future and i'm sure they're aware of that and trying to work as hard as they can to make sure that odds of success for them are as high as they can be [Music]

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How Chicken Became An American Obsession

How Chicken Became An American Obsession

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