OUR FOOD
You won’t be surprised to learn that at KFC, great tasting chicken matters. Our founder Colonel Harland Sanders learnt to cook from his mother when he was very young, and he believed in serving carefully prepared, balanced meals full of quality ingredients. Today we continue to use our past as inspiration for our future. While we are proud of our heritage, and will continue to provide fried chicken across our menu, you will see us offering freshly prepared balanced options, wholesome sides and updated recipes.
MENU INNOVATION
We believe in providing a range of products on our menu and offering our customers choice. Our food team is constantly innovating, exploring new recipes, finding new ways to make nutritional improvements and bringing healthier options to our menus. We assess all our products against the government endorsed 2004/05 Nutrient Profiling Model (NPM), which defines which products are considered high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS).
APPROACH
As we develop new products, we use the NPM definition of products that are HFSS, as well as the work started by Public Health England to set targets for nutritional content for different products as a guide for our work.
PROGRESS
Currently 65% of the individual products on our menu are classed as not high in fat, salt or sugar (non-HFSS) and we are working to increase this % year-on-year. We merchandise sugar free soft drinks as the default option for customers when buying on our app, our kiosks or on our website. To see more of what we have been doing and what we plan to do our 2024 Nutrition Update is here.
REFORMULATION
Whilst we want to keep offering customers a choice, there are some important changes we can make to the way our products are made and the ingredients they are made from. Reformulating our products is a key strategy in helping us to do this. Put very simply, we want to try and make our food healthier by improving the nutritional profile of the ingredients we use and reducing things like calories, sugar and salt, without compromising on the great taste and quality that our customers expect.
APPROACH
We recognise the importance of the work started by Public Health England to improve the nutritional profile of products across our industry by setting targets for individual ingredients and for product categories. Of particular relevance to KFC are the guidelines for calories (PHE Calorie Reduction Guidelines 2024) and salt (PHE Salt Reduction Guidelines 2024). In line with the recommendations in these reports, we are committed to reformulating our products towards these targets.
PROGRESS
Whilst we recognise that we still have more to do in this area, we have taken some important steps already.
These include:
- We have reformulated our fries, allowing us to remove 13 billion calories a year from our menu
- We have reduced the saturated fat levels in our frying oil by 10%
- We can’t stand artificial colours and flavours – or trans fats, so we don’t use them in our food.
To see more of what we have been doing and what we plan to do, read our 2024 Nutrition Update here.
PARTNERSHIPS
We believe bringing in outside, expert perspective is hugely valuable to our work. It is only through innovative partnerships, greater transparency and by learning from those around us, that we can hope to make progress on our nutrition journey. Credible partnerships with external stakeholders provide us with feedback and objective scrutiny. We choose our partners for their expertise, experience and honesty.
APPROACH
Our industry has an important role to play in ensuring that young people have access to the nutritious food they need to grow up healthy. We believe there is an opportunity for our current food system to make this easier for young people. That’s why we have a number of youth-focused food partnerships that are bringing together our work on nutrition with our wider work as a business to campaign alongside young people on their priorities. We also actively engage with public and private sector stakeholders and discuss ways of making progress on societal health and well-being challenges. This includes sharing our experience on nutritional improvement and enhancing consumer information with policymakers.
PROGRESS
In 2022, we partnered with the University of Durham to better understand effective behavioural interventions that can nudge customers towards healthier options. This allows us to explore how we can change the way our food options are presented to help consumers choose healthier options on our menu.
In 2022, we joined the The Food Systems Accelerator Programme run by youth activist movement, Bite Back. The programme partners young people with industry to test changes within businesses to make healthy food more desirable, accessible, and affordable. As part of this, we worked with Bite Back’s young advocates to develop, and then publicly commit to, a change goal which aims to drive improvements in the health and wellbeing of young people. The focus of our change goal is around lunch and exploring ways to encourage healthier options at this important moment in the day.
NUTRITION INFORMATION
We want our customers to know what’s in their food, so we provide calorie and nutrition information at point of purchase, as well as on all our digital channels. We are always looking for ways to improve this experience for our customers as they navigate our menus and as we signpost different dietary options.
APPROACH
Maintaining nutritional transparency is really important to us and for our customers, to help them make informed choices. Many people do come to KFC for a treat, but many also come to us for other occasions and want different menu options so need to be able to choose accordingly. That’s why providing consumers with the information they need when they are choosing from our menu is vital, and we provide nutrition information at every point of purchase, be that in restaurant or online.
PROGRESS
In 2011, we led the way, as the first quick service restaurant to display calorie information on our menus in all our restaurants. Today we provide the calorie content of all our menu, as required by government. Customers can find calorie information at all points of purchase. We also provide more detailed nutrition information on our trayliner and website. In 2022, we went further, adding a feature to our KFC Delivery app and on our kiosks in restaurant to give customers the ability to calculate total calorie information for their whole meal. Click below for more nutritional information, and to find out about the allergens in our food.
CHILDREN
We know we have a responsibility to our younger fans, which is why we offer balanced KFC kids meals at every restaurant. It’s also why we’ll never target children with advertising, or give away toys with our box meals.
DO YOU NEED MORE INFO? HERE ARE SOME FAQS:
I HAVE A FOOD ALLERGY, CAN I CHECK YOUR MENU?
Take a look at our Nutrition, Allergens & Dietary Information which tells you all the products across our menu. Sorry, unfortunately products placed on delivery platforms cannot be customised in any way. In restaurant, please ask our team member is you wish to customise a product. If products are customised in anyway, please be aware that allergen and nutritional information will no longer be accurate.
WHERE CAN I FIND YOUR NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION?
Here’s all of our Nutrition, Allergens & Dietary Information for each item on our menu.
DO YOU HAVE VEGAN OPTIONS ON YOUR MENU?
We certainly do. Feast your eyes on our tasty Original Recipe QUORN™ fillet vegan burger. Coated in our famous 11 herbs and spices, it’s sure to satisfy your plant-based taste buds. In addition to our vegan burger we also offer items for vegetarians including, Veggie salad and Veggie rice box.
WHAT KFC MENU ITEMS SHOULD I AVOID IF I HAVE A NUT ALLERGY?
If you have a nut allergy please take a look at our Nutrition, Allergens & Dietary Information, which includes all the products on our menu. Sorry, unfortunately products placed on delivery platforms cannot be customised in any way. In restaurant, please ask our team member is you wish to customise a product. If products are customised in anyway, please be aware that allergen and nutritional information will no longer be accurate
DO YOU HAVE ANY VEGETARIAN OPTIONS ON YOUR MENU?
If you’re a vegetarian check out the Veggie Rice Box and Veggie Salad Box on our menu. They’re light, filling and delicious.
MORE FROM BEHIND THE BUCKET
FULL ALLERGEN AND NUTRITION DISCLAIMER
Our allergen information will be kept up to date and should be checked each time you dine with us as we may update recipes. Our teams cannot recommend or tell you what is suitable for you to eat or drink. KFC (UK&I) is committed to provide allergen information in store for all of it products of the 14 mandatory allergens (Cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soya beans, milk, nuts, celery, mustard, sesame seeds, sulphur dioxide & sulphites, Lupin & Mollusc). Our teams regularly handle multiple food ingredients in our kitchens, so we can’t guarantee that any items are allergen free. The information shows which menu items are suitable for vegetarians and vegans. These are made using vegetarian and vegan ingredients. However, our preparation and cooking methods could mean they may come into contact with non-vegetarian and non-vegan ingredients. The nutritional information comes from averages of composite food samples. There may be some variation depending on ingredients used, supplier and season of the year. All calorie (kcal) and kJ figures are rounded to the nearest five. All nutritional values are based on per serving. If products are customised in any way, please be aware that allergen and nutritional information will no longer be accurate.