How KFCs Ran Out Of Chicken!

A logistics snafu caused hundreds of store closings in the U.K. when chickens didn’t land

- Christopher Jasper and Eric Pfanner, with Leslie Patton and Richard Weiss

Ruari Lee didn’t care about supply chains, distribution centers, logistics, or any of the finer points of the globalized economy. All he wanted was his regular chicken fillet burger meal at KFC. But the restaurant operator’s shop in Kendal, a town in northern England, had been closed four days that week in mid-February, like many of the other U.K. restaurants belonging to the chain formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken. The reason for the shutdown: There was no chicken.

“It’s ridiculous,” says Lee, who dropped by the reopened store on Feb. 23 after work. It’s also a telling sign of the need for reliable supply chains, the often overlooked systems that can make—or break—a business’s ability to operate smoothly.

In a global economy where fewer and fewer goods are made near where they’re sold, managing the movement of those goods from manufacturers to shops and customers has become more essential—and risky—to any business. That’s the case not only for major manufacturers (Airbus SE shuttles airplane parts between 14 plants across a half-dozen countries) but also for the restaurant chain that serves up a 14-piece “bargain bucket” of Original Recipe chicken with fries for £16.99 ($24) to hungry patrons in England.