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KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) was founded by Colonel Harland Sanders, an entrepreneur who began selling fried chicken from his roadside restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky, during the Great Depression. Sanders identified the potential of restaurant franchising, and the first "Kentucky Fried Chicken" franchise opened in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1952. KFC popularized chicken in the fast-food industry, diversifying the market by challenging the established dominance of the hamburger. Branding himself "Colonel Sanders", the founder became a prominent figure of American cultural history, and his image remains widely used in KFC advertising. The company's rapid expansion made it too large for Sanders to manage, so in 1964 he sold the company to a group of investors led by John Y. Brown, Jr. and Jack C. Massey. KFC was one of the first fast-food chains to expand internationally, opening outlets in England, Mexico and Jamaica by the mid-1960s. Throughout the 1970s and 80s, KFC experienced mixed success domestically, as it went through a series of changes in corporate ownership with little or no experience in the restaurant business. In the early 1970s, KFC was sold to the spirits distributor Heublein, which was taken over by the R.J. Reynolds food and tobacco conglomerate, which later sold the chain to PepsiCo. The chain continued to expand overseas, and in 1987 KFC became the first Western restaurant chain to open in China. In 1997, PepsiCo spun off its restaurants division as Tricon Global Restaurants, which changed its name to Yum! Brands in 2002. Yum has proved a more focused owner than Pepsi, and although KFC's number of outlets have declined in the US, the company has continued to grow in Asia, South America and Africa. The chain has expanded to 18,875 outlets across 118 countries and territories, with 4,563 outlets in China alone, KFC's largest market. ==Origin== Harland Sanders was born in 1890 and raised on a farm outside Henryville, Indiana. His father died in 1895, and to make ends meet his mother took work at a canning plant. As the eldest child at the age of five, Sanders was left to care for his two siblings.〔 When he turned seven his mother taught him how to cook.〔 After leaving the family home at age 13, Sanders pursued several professions including railroad worker and insurance salesman, with mixed success. In 1930, he took over a Shell filling station on US Route 25 just outside North Corbin, a small city on the edge of the Appalachian Mountains.〔 By June, he had converted a storeroom into a small eating area using his own dining table, serving meals such as steaks and country ham to travelers. In 1934, Sanders took over the lease of the Pure Oil filling station on the other side of the road, due to its greater visibility for motorists. He then began to sell fried chicken. To improve his skills, Sanders took an eight-week restaurant-management course at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. By 1936, his business had proved successful enough for him to be given the honorary title of Kentucky colonel by Governor Ruby Laffoon. In 1937, Sanders expanded his restaurant to 140 seats, and in 1940 purchased a motel across the street, the Sanders Court & Café.〔 Sanders was dissatisfied with the 35 minutes it took to prepare his chicken in an iron frying pan, but he did not want to deep fry. Although a much faster process, in Sanders' opinion it produced dry and crusty chicken that was unevenly cooked. On the other hand, if he prepared the chicken in advance of an order, there was sometimes waste at the end of the day.〔 In 1939, the first commercial pressure cookers were released onto the market, predominantly designed for steaming vegetables. Sanders bought one and modified it into a pressure fryer, which he then used to prepare chicken. The new method reduced production time to be comparable with deep frying, yet, in Sanders' opinion, retained the quality of pan-fried chicken.〔 In July 1940, Sanders finalized what came to be known as his Original Recipe of 11 herbs and spices. Although he never publicly revealed the recipe, he admitted to the use of salt and pepper, and claimed that the ingredients "stand on everybody's shelf".〔 After being recommissioned as a Kentucky colonel in 1950 by Governor Lawrence Wetherby, Sanders began to dress the part, growing a goatee and wearing a black frock coat (later switching to a white suit), a string tie, and referring to himself as "Colonel".〔 His associates went along with the title change, "jokingly at first and then in earnest", according to biographer Josh Ozersky. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of KFC」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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