Feathers fly as chicken shortage shuts 700 KFCs across Britain
london — US fast-food chain KFC said on Monday it had shut hundreds of UK stores as German delivery supplier DHL left them short of fowl and customers without their “fried chicken fix”.
KFC said that more than 700 of its 900 UK-wide chicken shops had been forced to close since the weekend, while others were offering a downsized menu or shorter opening hours.
“We’ve brought a new delivery partner onboard, but they’ve had a couple of teething problems — getting fresh chicken out to 900 restaurants across the country is pretty complex,” KFC said in a statement.
“We won’t compromise on quality, so no deliveries has meant some of our restaurants are closed, and others are operating a limited menu, or shortened hours. The company first apologised for the problems on Saturday. In an update on Monday, it listed more than 200 stores as open, but did not say when the rest might reopen.
“We know that this might have inconvenienced some of you over the last few days, and disappointed you when you wanted your fried chicken fix — we’re really sorry about that,” the company added.
Signs on many of the closed stores said: “Sorry, we’re closed. We deliver our chickens fresh into our restaurants, but we’ve had a few hiccups with the delivery today. We wouldn’t want to be open without offering our full menu, but we’ll be back at the fryers as soon as we can.” DHL said in a separate statement that it was working to resolve the problem. DHL, which recently took over the KFC contract from Bidvest Logistics, said that “due to operational issues a number of deliveries in recent days have been incomplete or delayed.”
It added: “We are working with KFC and our partners to rectify the situation as a priority and apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.”
DHL announced in November that it had been appointed alongside QSL to manage the supply and distribution of food products and packaging for more than 850 KFC outlets in the UK. — AFP, AP