In a restaurant, you have to offer what people need

Not long ago, KFC started running a rather interesting strategy in some countries. It basically consists of creating a new combo they call the “homemade combo,” which has the peculiarity of including homemade items combined with their chicken.

Note: the prices shown in the images in this article are in Colombian currency, although the same strategy appears to be running in several South American countries.

What could have led KFC to run this strategy?

As restaurant owners, we know this move may be meant to solve several problems KFC was facing. Without fear of being wrong, we can tell that what led KFC to offer this combo is one or several of the following reasons:

• – Potential customers do not eat at KFC many times a week because, even though it is chicken, it is usually labeled as junk food, something people generally eat once a week or twice at most.
• – Adding homemade items makes it possible to lower the cost of the dish, so KFC manages to offer something cheaper that, paradoxically, is perceived as a better option than its traditional dishes.
• – Considering the strategic locations the franchise always looks for in every country it opens in, these are often shopping malls where customer traffic is higher mainly on weekends or paydays, but the “flow” of employees from the rest of the businesses that make up the mall stays constant every day.

By offering a cheaper combo, a more nutritious one and one better adapted to what people traditionally eat at midday, KFC has the chance to increase its revenue because it will be considered a good alternative by the large number of employees who work in shopping malls or in offices near the area where they are located. This will undoubtedly translate into more revenue for KFC.

Let's compare a regular combo with the homemade combo:

As we can see, the homemade combo is cheaper. We do not know whether it includes a drink, but let's remember that the drink has an insignificant cost for this kind of business, so much so that they can easily offer the famous “drink refill,” so it is not relevant at all whether it includes one or not.

Another important aspect we can see in the strategy is that they are putting a lot of effort into making the combo known, so much so that we ourselves, without being in Colombia, found out about it through advertising. In Colombia they are naturally doing a lot of advertising, as we can see in the image:

Anyway, we do not know how KFC will do with this bet, but what is clear is that the strategy has been well thought out and it will most likely give them excellent results. You can take this example to see how important it is to offer what people need or what people actually ask for. If a chain as big as KFC, which usually has many standards in its franchise, takes the risk of doing these things, why don't you? Think of something that fits your business and do it right now.