KFC's plan to catch up in the fried chicken wars? Ditch the bones

Fried chicken is making American restaurants more money than ever, except at KFC - the very place that pioneered selling it by the bucket load across the country.

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Chick-fil-A fans swarm to its sandwiches and milkshakes, Popeyes' launches go viral on social media, Raising Cane's is drawing diners with its yellow Labrador mascot and 2.3 million TikTok followers, and McDonald's now sells about as much chicken as it does beef.

But KFC? "Invisible" and "irrelevant," according to one of its leaders. It was the only major chicken chain where sales fell in 2024.

"We used to be an American icon," KFC US president Catherine Tan-Gillespie said in an interview. "Somewhere along the way, we stopped acting like one."

The problem for KFC, owned by Yum! Brands Inc, is in its bones. The 73-year-old brand's focus on bone-in chicken - like its iconic red-and-white-striped bucket of fried drumsticks - has left it flailing among younger customers, who are obsessed with boneless white meat.

Since 2020, the amount of bone-in chicken sold at stores has fallen by 4 per cent, while boneless is up 11 per cent, according to data by market research firm Circana.

KFC is now looking to boost its business by dropping the price of its chicken sandwich to US$3.99 (S$5.20) from US$5.49, despite an increase in the price of wholesale chicken.