The 62-year old entrepreneur
Colonel Harland David Sanders, was an American businessman best known for founding the fast food restaurant chain Kentucky Fried Chicken, or KFC. Sanders began selling fried chicken from his roadside restaurant in Corbin Kentucky during the Great Depression, where he realised the potential of restaurant franchising, leading to the opening of the first ever KFC restaurant in Salt Lake City Utah, in 1952. Sanders developed a secret recipe and a special way of cooking chicken in a pressure fryer making his KFC chicken extremely tasty. Sanders worked a number of jobs in his early life such as a steam engine stoker, insurance salesman, filling station operator, and was 62 years old when he opened the first Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Utah.
Sleeping in the back of a car
Left with only $105 a month from Social Security, and some little savings, Sanders traveled the US looking for suitable restaurants to franchise his chicken. He often slept in the back of his car, offered to cook his chicken to restaurants he visited, and if workers liked it, negotiated franchise rights then and there. Although such visits required so much time, potential franchisees started visiting Sanders eventually, allowing him to run the company from his home where he started just shipping the spices to restaurants. KFC was one of the first fast food chains to expand internationally, opening outlets in Canada, UK, Australia, Mexico and Jamaica in the mid 1960s.
It's Finger Lickin' Good
In 1962, Sanders obtained a patent protecting his method of pressure fying chicken, and trademarked the phrase "It's Finger Lickin' Good". The company expanded to more than 600 locations and was becoming too overwhelming for the now 73 years old Sanders. In 1964, the Colonel sold the Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation for $2 million ($17.5 million today) to a group of Kentucky businessmen headed by 29 year old lawyer and future governor of Kentucky John Brown Jr. In 1965, Sanders moved to Mississauga Ontario to oversee his Canadian franchises and continued to collect franchise and appearance fees both in Canada in the US.
Colonel Sanders
Harland David Sanders was born in Henryville Indiana, and was the oldest of three children born to Wilbur David and Margaret Ann Sanders. In 1895, his father died leaving him responsible to look after his younger siblings while his mother worked in a tomato cannery. By the age of seven, Sanders was reportedly skilled with bread and vegetables, and eventually with meat. Harland Sanders didn't finalise his Secret Recipe until 1940 at age 50, a year before the United States entered World War II. Kentucky Governor Ruby Laffoon issued a ceremonial decree that commissioned Sanders as an honorary colonel. After a second honorary commission in 1949, Sanders embraced the title and tried to look the part by growing facial hair and donning a black frock coat and string tie.
Comments