British KFC's Running Out Of Chicken: British People Not Happy

LONDON — In Britain, KFC has added a twist to the perennial riddle, “Why did the chicken cross the road?”

“The chicken crossed the road,” the fast-food chain said on its website. “Just not to our restaurants.”

The company found itself on Tuesday in the throes of a widespread chicken shortage for a third day running, after a hiccup in its supply chain forced half of its 900 outlets in Britain to close.

In one of the KFC holdouts, in Central London, a “limited menu” was on display, and one employee warned at noon that popcorn nuggets and corn were running out fast.

“We might have to close tomorrow,” he said, asking not to be identified because he was not allowed to talk to the news media.

Full story here.

There’s a lot going on here, not the least of which is that KFC ran out of chicken. I don’t know what exactly happened, but seems like British KFC changed suppliers and got all fucked up. I know this is a terribly obvious take, but it’s got to be a take nonetheless: you can’t run out of chicken if you’re a chicken restaurant. You just can’t. I don’t care if you have to go to the market and buy a bunch of premade rotisserie shit, toss it in the deep fryer, and call it a new recipe; but you’ve got to go down swinging. I don’t know, go buy fried chicken from your competitor and fry it again. Nobody’s going to know, just don’t admit to anything. Find a way to put chicken on people’s plates, no matter the cost.

I’m not sure if you know this, but Britain may be the worst place in the world to run out of fried chicken. I don’t know what it is, but British people fucking love fried chicken. It makes very little sense. I get it, it’s tasty: but these people are insane for it. You have to basically convince British people that there’s other fast food out there. What’s so great about the chicken guys? Tell us. We’re curious and we want to know. It’s at the point where this is going to be a national crisis if it doesn’t get fixed soon. I hate to be that guy, but it really plays into the whole “British food sucks argument,” If you think about it, it’s basically just like fish and chips, but with chicken. It’s as if KFC has robbed these poor, unfortunate people of their national dish: which is bizarre because it’s not like the British people as a whole are just frying up chicken on their own, they just love KFC. Don’t you have another thing to fall back on? There’s lot of blame to throw around here: shame on you KFC for running out of chicken, but also, shame on you British people for needing it so bad.