Yankee Fast Food Chains Enter Nepal

With Sept comes KFC, Pizza Hut
ekantipur, 23-Apr-09

Come September, the world's two best known fast food chains will come to Kathmandu -KFC, also known as Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Pizza Hut.

Both KFC and Pizza Hut are being brought by R.J. Crops who owns the soft drink company Varun Beverages, the manufacturers of Pepsicola in Nepal. R.J. Crops has the franchise of both for India. Both these food chains will be opened at Annapurna Complex, Durbar Marg. There will be two separate teams to handle daily operation.

KFC is the world's most popular chicken restaurant chain specialising in Original Recipe, based in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. KFC was founded by Colonel Harland Sanders in 1952 and primarily sells chicken in pieces, wraps, salads and sandwiches. While its primary focus is fried chicken, KFC also offers a line of roasted chicken products, sides and desserts. Sanders sold the entire KFC franchising operation in 1964 for US $2 million. Since then, it has been sold three more times, most recently to PepsiCo. It made it part of its Tricon Global Restaurants division, which has now been renamed Yum! Brands.

The original handwritten recipe is kept locked away at the KFC corporate headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky as a closely-guarded secret. Only two members within the Yum! corporation know the recipe in its entirety.

Pizza Hut is the world's largest pizza restaurant chain and international franchise based in Addison, Texas, USA. Pizza Hut offers different styles of pizza along with side dishes including pasta, buffalo wings, breadsticks, and garlic bread. It has approximately 34,000 restaurants, delivery-carry out units, and kiosks in 100 countries.

Pizza Hut is also one of the flagship brands of Yum! Brands, Inc. Pizza Hut is the world's largest pizza chain with over 12,500 restaurants across 91 countries. In India, Pizza Hut has 137 restaurants across 36 cities.

R.J. Crops is one of PepsiCo India's largest franchisee bottler having operation in India, Nepal and Africa. Of late, this group also has investment in Nepal's housing sector. The Mega housing project - Park View Horizon in Dhapasi is being built by this group.