Can the Colonel Spark KFC’s Comeback?

KFC is an American icon, Catherine Tan-Gillespie says, but lately, it hasn’t been acting like one.

The numbers paint a rather grim picture: KFC started 2015 with 4,391 units in the United States; it’s now down to 3,580, a drop of 811 as closures continue to outpace openings by a sizable margin. Until the third quarter of 2025, when it was up 2 percent, KFC hadn’t seen positive same-store sales growth for eight straight periods. Six of those were negative.

Tan-Gillespie, president of KFC U.S. since April, is undeterred. If anything, she’s energized by the challenge and says KFC is poised to win back a bigger share of what’s become a massive chicken category.

“When I think about the comeback plan, it’s all about us as a brand getting our feistiness back, our fighting spirit back,” she says, referencing a wide-ranging effort kicked off last summer with an offer for a free bucket of chicken and the resurrection of Colonel Sanders in advertising campaigns.

Cue the déjà vu. In 2015, KFC rebooted the Colonel with a series of celebrity cameos (remember the Norm MacDonald and Reba McEntire versions?) and revamped its strategy in the face of slumping sales and franchisee unrest. KFC was also grappling with shifting consumer preferences that moved away from bone-in chicken, plus changes to the nature of family mealtimes, with fewer families eating together at home.

“When your whole business is built on a bucket and as a meal replacement” that’s a problem, then-president Kevin Hochman said in early 2020, two years before he left to become CEO of Chili’s parent company Brinker International, where he engineered another unlikely revival.

History is repeating itself. Instead of drumsticks and thighs, consumers are reaching for the tenders and sandwiches offered by the likes of Chick-fil-A, Zaxbys, Dave’s Hot Chicken and a host of emerging fried chicken concepts that have relegated KFC from category leader to challenger. When consumers are eating 26 percent of their fast-food orders in the car, a bucket of chicken is a tougher sell. When the messaging gets lost in the shuffle, it’s even tougher.

“The brand was at its best when the Colonel was around,” says Tan-Gillespie, but KFC walked away from using the image of founder Harlan Sanders prominently in marketing during the pandemic. It also lost ground in product innovation and failed to execute a media plan with the right mix of advertising channels to keep the brand in front of core customers and raise its visibility among younger generations.

Operationally, speed was prioritized, which led to quality taking a hit.

“Our customers tell us that—especially when we’ve got lower transactions than many other QSRs—customers are telling us, actually, you’re famous for best-tasting fried chicken. Like, give us best-tasting fried chicken,” she says. A refocusing on execution and customer experience, or what Tan-Gillespie calls “hot chicken, warm smile,” is an impactful component of KFC’s broader revitalization effort.

KFC Global CEO Scott Mezvinsky says opportunities were missed to take advantage of the momentum the brand had through 2021, and when inflation sent chicken prices soaring and consumers started pulling back on visits, it led to some short-term decisions that “maybe aren’t best.”

But, like Tan-Gillespie, he’s confident in the resiliency of the brand and its ability to retake the lead.

“We were the OGs of chicken,” he says. “The Colonel invented the category, essentially. And we feel that we have every right to win and hopefully dominate that category.”

Competition comes for the Colonel

Mezvinsky and Tan-Gillespie are at the helm of a new leadership team at KFC tasked with improving domestic store performance and fueling even more international growth for a brand with about 33,000 global stores.

Other new appointments to the U.S. team last year included Melissa Cash, who was Wingstop’s chief brand officer, as chief marketing officer, Francis Arrastia as chief digital and technology officer, Tiffany Furman as chief growth officer and Sarah Crow as chief legal officer. Arrastia came from Levi Strauss & Co., while Furman and Crow each spent several years in different roles under KFC parent company Yum Brands.

Also the owner of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and Habit Burger & Grill, Yum has made it clear it views KFC U.S. as a vital component of its portfolio going forward. In November, it announced a strategic review for struggling Pizza Hut that could include the sale of the brand, which would shift more focus to KFC and Taco Bell. (Habit Burger, which Yum bought in 2020 when it had 260 units, is now just shy of 400 locations but generates only about 1 percent of Yum’s global system sales.)

“It’s very important that we solve KFC U.S. It’s strategically important to us as Yum,” Tan-Gillespie says. “I think placing multiple bets on how we do that is also important to Yum.”

“The status quo for KFC U.S. isn’t going to be good enough,” Mezvinsky stresses.

That’s especially true in the face of immense competition. Chick-fil-A generated more than $23 billion in total sales in 2024 from its 3,119 units. KFC’s domestic stores, meanwhile, did just under $5 billion and Raising Cane’s, which no longer franchises, pulled ahead with its $4.96 billion. Popeyes is also out in front, with $6.1 billion in sales from its 3,520 North American locations in 2024. Wingstop opened its 3,000th store last year and was on pace to easily exceed $5 billion.

Then there’s a whole host of relative newcomers. Dave’s Hot Chicken eclipsed 360 restaurants and $850 million in sales in 2025, and was acquired by private equity firm Roark Capital in a $1 billion deal. Slim Chickens, Huey Magoo’s and Angry Chickz are all accelerating franchise expansion.

And don’t forget McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s, which are investing heavily in chicken platforms. In 2024, McDonald’s reported its systemwide chicken sales hit $25 billion, on par with beef. Last year it created teams with dedicated leaders for beef, chicken and beverages.

Mezvinsky loves that chicken is the fastest growing category, not just in the U.S., but globally. Technomic in its 2025 Global Menu Category Report found spending on chicken menu items increased 12 percent in the last two years.

“The biggest opportunity for us is we need to get more of the category coming to visit us,” Mezvinsky says. “And the way they’re going to do that is if we do compelling, modern products.”

Cue the menu innovation and marketing.

From brand strength to Saucy

While fully aware of the competition, Tan-Gillespie isn’t in the imitation game.

“You kind of use them for information, not inspiration. It’s running our own KFC race,” she says. “We have this incredible secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices, the original recipe. We have to be on the front foot with that. We have to think, how do we modernize buckets so that they’re not just group sharing, they can be snacking occasions, individual meal occasions.

“It’s starting from a position of strength, as opposed to going out in the wild and expecting to beat our competitors with kind of random hits that are far from our strength.”

KFC in 2024 launched a “$10 Tuesdays” promotion, offering a bucket with eight pieces of bone-in chicken. To modernize the value deal in 2025, says Tan-Gillespie, it included the option of tenders.

“We’re not alienating our current customers, but we’re bringing in and making our things that we’re famous for accessible to new customers,” she says.

In a move that combined its newfound marketing swagger with the return of a popular product, KFC used two words—“HERE, DAMN.”—in an August social media post to announce it was bringing back potato wedges. In 48 hours, the original X post reached 50

million organic views. KFC also launched a Hot & Spicy wings and wedges combo, which some of its largest franchisees say generated a meaningful sales bump.

Then there’s the new, serious visage of Colonel Sanders, played this time around by “Sons of Anarchy” actor Timothy Murphy. Accompanied by chef and actor Matty Matheson of “The Bear” fame in a narrative-driven series of ads, the Colonel swaps his usual cheerful persona for one obsessed with the perfect execution of his signature 11 herbs and spices recipe. Clearly displeased with KFC’s performance, the Colonel’s sterner look appears on billboards, buckets, signage and social channels with taglines such as, “He ain’t smiling until you are.”

If it seems as though KFC is taking a page from Taco Bell’s more rebellious-sounding brand playbook, that’s no coincidence. Matt Prince, who was Taco Bell’s director of brand communication and PR, came over to KFC last March as head of earned media and social.

Other elements of Taco Bell are likely to bleed over to KFC, says Mezvinsky. Before his promotion to the CEO role after Sabir Sami resigned, Mezvinsky was president of Taco Bell’s North American and international business, and prior to that was the Mexican brand’s global chief strategy and financial officer.

“One of the things I’ve taken from Taco Bell is the great innovation that they do … and I think we can do that at KFC as well. I think our products lend themselves that way,” he says, also noting there are more opportunities to take advantage of Yum’s scale on the supply chain front and with consumer insights from Collider Lab, the consulting firm Yum bought in 2015.

“The Yum perspective is, the further away from the consumer, the more we’ve got to centralize, right? Which I think is a good lens to have,” Mezvinsky says. “I think it’s something Chris [Turner], coming in as CEO, is very passionate about, and I think he’s going to help drive that.”

Turner, who was Yum’s chief financial and franchise officer, succeeded David Gibbs as CEO in October.

Tan-Gillespie, who spent almost three years leading KFC Canada and before that was the brand’s global CMO, says just about everything she and her team are working on is measured against three points: “How do we make this brand relevant, easy and distinctive again?” Much of that is consumer-facing work, but just as important is ensuring the restaurants are equipped to execute at a high level.

Self-order kiosks have been added to more than 1,000 restaurants, and the rollouts of new point-of-sale and kitchen display systems are underway. Franchisees are being offered incentives, she adds, to move early on adopting the new technology.

A healthy 20 percent of sales come through digital channels, including third-party delivery and the KFC app, she continues, and an important undertaking is to digitize the drive-thru. Right now, KFC Rewards, the brand’s loyalty program, is only accessible through the website and app.

“Obviously, 60 or 70 percent of our customers are through the drive-thru channel,” Tan-Gillespie says. “So bringing loyalty to the drive-thru channel is an obvious next step, so we have more people into that ecosystem that we can then talk to and engage with.”

Other aspects of the physical manifestation of KFC’s modernization effort—aka restaurant remodels, relocations and new unit development—will likely hinge on the sustained sales and traffic growth KFC is seeking through the comeback plan. Before franchisees will spend the money, Mezvinsky says, there needs to be demonstrated improvement in the unit economics.

“When you have a checkered performance, it does two things. One, there is constraints on the cash flow. Two, there’s constraints on confidence. I think getting more consistent growth, belief that the brand’s headed in the right trajectory, will lend itself to development,” he says. “Development is a lagging indicator, and so I would expect development to be the last thing that takes off in the U.S.”

KFC does have a new prototype restaurant design it’s calling “open house” that will debut in the middle of the year in Dallas, where there’s a signed lease for a corporate store. A few franchisees are also planning to open locations this year of the concept Tan-Gillespie says is “an entire future expression of the brand.”

“We’ve said, OK, if we’re going to take what KFC is famous for and its strengths, but almost rebuild it from scratch for tomorrow’s customer as well as today’s customer, what would this look like?” she says. The new design includes a dual drive-thru, a walk-up window, a special area for aggregator deliveries and “a gorgeous dine-in” space.

“It’s making sure that any way that a customer wants to enjoy our food at a restaurant, they can do that in a number of different ways,” she continues.

Then there’s Saucy by KFC, which debuted in Orlando, Florida, in late 2024 as a spinoff concept focused on tenders and drinks. KFC saw enough promise in the concept that it’s since opened three more corporate units, and Yum Brands in September said it bought 13 PDQ Chicken sites in Florida with the intention of converting them to Saucy.

The expansion of Saucy comes as Taco Bell is also growing its beverage-driven Live Más Café concept. Both are a bid to appeal to younger consumers. Saucy features an array of dipping sauces such as jalapeno pesto ranch and sweet teriyaki to go along with various “tendie” combos and drinks.

“It’s been an amazing experiment,” says Tan-Gillespie as she notes the name is Saucy by KFC for a reason. “We wanted to bring all of the KFC credibility to the Saucy concept. And if I think about the brand equity exchange, we also wanted Saucy to be a proof point of modernizing KFC. I think already we’ve seen some good data points around that.”

The company said sales at the first Saucy location were more than double KFC’s average unit volume in the U.S., which was $1.3 million in 2024. Of note, that AUV sits well behind some of KFC’s main QSR competitors.

Average sales for Chick-fil-A’s freestanding or drive-thru-only locations were $9.3 million in 2024. Zaxbys comes in at $2.8 million, and Dave’s Hot Chicken restaurants average about $2.4 million.

Saucy is a 100 percent equity concept funded by Yum, emphasizes Mezvinsky, but the intention is not to expand purely with corporate development and be seen as a competitor to KFC’s franchisees, who operate about 98 percent of the U.S. restaurants.

“It’s unproven, so we’re the ones putting capital at play. Whether it returns or not, we don’t know. That’s not something that we’d want our franchisees to do,” Mezvinsky says.

“If and when it works, then it for sure is going to be something that we would open up to our franchisee partners. And that’s something I’ve been clear with the KFC U.S. franchisees: This is ultimately something that should help you, if it works. And that’s important to me as a leader of KFC, that this is not a competing brand but it’s something that’s helping the system and supporting the system.”

Franchisees see a promising start

Franchisees are optimistic, if cautiously so. Pushpak Patel, who leads Mitra QSR under the CMG Companies umbrella, said while same-store sales at his 132 KFC and 33 co-branded KFC/Taco Bell stores softened in the fourth quarter, he believes the new leaders have the brand on the right track.

“For the last couple years, it’s not been good,” says Patel, noting challenges with a “revolving door on leadership,” intense economic headwinds and consumers who are “taking a beating at the same time.”

The wings and wedges promotion, though, “did wonders for us,” he continues. “I’m bullish with this current team, what Catherine and her teams are doing there.”

Patel, who’s been in the KFC system since 2009, says while KFC needs to own the bone-in chicken segment, it should be able to dominate with its tenders, sandwiches and nuggets.

“But we’re not. And that’s the challenge we’re trying to address,” he says. In mid-2020 and through much of 2021, “KFC was the hottest brand … sales were crazy.

“But when we started seeing huge labor inflations, labor shortage, just huge food cost increases, when the profitability was slimming down, that’s when we veered off and went back to just trying to maintain transactions … versus sticking with innovation and new products.”

KFC has 250 franchisees across the country. Kansas-based KBP Brands is its largest, with 800 restaurants inclusive of co-branded units. Like Patel, Mike Kulp, KBP’s chief executive, said a “rocky” start to 2025 led to “a nice recovery in Q3,” followed by a bit of a drop.

“But we’ve certainly seen sort of a trend in the right direction,” Kulp says.

“There is an unmistakable correlation between same-store sales growth and profitability. And that’s not always the case if you’ve got an off-the-charts discount strategy that’s driving top line at the expense of bottom line,” he continues. “But we saw a very, very strong period nine and a very strong period 10 associated with the top line movement inside of the business.”

While KFC over indexes with a lower-income consumer, the growth within the broader

marketplace for chicken presents an opportunity for the brand to attract customers who wouldn’t have previously considered it, but are enticed by savvy marketing and a modern menu. It requires a two-part approach, in Kulp’s mind, as he says there’s no question of meaningful crossover between KFC’s customer and those buying chicken fingers at Raising Cane’s.

“If we do what we do really, really well, I think we’ll continue to grow frequency with a consumer that’s sort of directly down Main Street for us,” Kulp says. “I think we’ve got to do the things that are outside the scope of what has been the core competency of this business for years in order to build penetration. And that’s the stuff I think the comeback plan is largely focused on.”

Perhaps the biggest hurdle for KFC as it seeks to play more in off-the-bone products, Kulp believes, is the perception that it isn’t a premium tender or nugget competitor.

The brand’s biggest objective should be to recapture lapsed and light users, go after new ones and “educate the consumer in a wildly, aggressively growing market for those off-the-bone products, that we have a phenomenal product … and should be in their consideration set,” he says.

KFC’s plan to win back its leadership position in the category is solid, Patel believes. But as with every effort in the restaurant business, the outcome will be the true test.

“Now we’ve got to execute on it,” Patel says. If results are there, “I’ll be the first one knocking on the door to open more restaurants.”

KFC's Global Growth Engine

Yum Brands CEO Chris Turner said during the company’s third quarter earnings call he believes there’s room for at least 75,000 global KFC locations. That would mean more than doubling its unit count, which as of Q3 was 32,951, with most of the growth expected to come from markets other than the United States.

KFC has nearly 29,400 restaurants outside the U.S. By comparison, Popeyes has about 2,000 international locations. Chick-fil-A is just starting to expand beyond its domestic core and has about 30 units in Canada. The company opened its first permanent restaurants in Great Britain and Singapore last year and said it plans to invest more than $100 million in the United Kingdom and another $75 million in Singapore in the next 10 years.

China is KFC’s largest market. The brand’s 12,600-plus restaurants there generate nearly 30 percent of the system’s total sales—its U.S. stores account for 14 percent—and more development is on the way under Yum China Holdings. By sales percentage, Europe (12 percent), the rest of Asia (11 percent), Latin America (8 percent) and Australia (7 percent) come next.

Emerging markets, including Latin America and Africa, have strong potential, noted KFC Global CEO Scott Mezvinsky, as their consuming classes continue to swell. KFC’s master franchisee for Latin American, Juan Carlos Serrano, has a portfolio of 850 units and last year acquired a controlling stake in the brand’s 230-unit Brazil business for $35 million with the aim of improving transactions and restarting growth.

KFC Holdings Japan changed hands in 2024 when U.S. private equity firm Carlyle bought it from Berkshire Hathaway-backed Mitsubishi Corp. and took it private. Mitsubishi co-founded KFC Japan in 1970 and helped the brand get to more than 1,200 outlets. Carlyle, which has international restaurant experience with brands such as McDonald’s, is “hungry,” said Mezvinsky, and wants to push more development.

KFC wants that growth mindset from its international franchisees, he noted, and so in some cases that might mean bringing in new operators.

“We’ve got to be bolder. We’ve got to be more disruptive. Some of the same things I just said about the U.S. apply all over the world,” Mezvinsky said. “Have the tough decisions. If you need new franchisees or different ways of working with franchisees, we should do that. If we need to support our franchisees in better ways, we need to do that. Where it’s working, double down, do more. Where it’s not working, we’ve got to do something different.”

Where it makes sense, Mezvinsky said international franchisees are investing in flagship locations, such as the two-story restaurant that opened in Rome in October near the famous Trevi Fountain. That opening followed the launch of the Prague flagship in 2024 and is part of the brand’s broader strategy to accelerate its presence throughout Europe.

“It’s doing great volumes, but more importantly, it’s helping the entire country and the entire city of Rome, saying, hey, this is what the KFC brand is,” Mezvinsky said.

This story has been updated to clarify that a potential sale of Pizza Hut is part of the strategic review process Yum Brands announced for the pizza brand in November. 

Originally posted on https://www.franchisetimes.com/franchise_times_cover_stories/can-the-colonel-spark-kfc-s-comeback/article_8c7d0a51-6ce2-4490-81df-d8cefa81455e.html