The Colonel had a restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky, which
had been doing very well. A new interstate highway was
planned to bypass the town of Corbin. Seeing that his
business was about to dry up, the Colonel auctioned off
his operations. After paying his bills, he had nothing to
live on except his $105 Social Security checks.
In 1952, confident of his chicken recipe, he began crisscrossing
the country in his car, making an offer to restaurant owners:
He would walk into a restaurant, announce to the owner,
“I bet my chicken recipe is better than yours” and propose a
cook-off.
(The chicken provided by the restaurants he visited, using
his recipe, was part of his plan for feeding himself during
those lean days.)
If the owner was favorable, he would “franchise” his chicken
recipe to them at 5 cents per chicken.
In all, just over 1000 restaurants turned him down, without one
successful deal.
Then one day he was having his daily cooking duel with a
bar owner, who said to him, “Sir, I’m trying to sell beer, not
chicken. This stuff needs to be a whole lot saltier so
customers will get thirsty and buy beer!”
So he grabbed the salt shaker, poured some salt on, and took
another bite. “Now THIS is GREAT,” he said. “If you’ll add
salt to this recipe, I’m a taker!”
The Colonel took a bite and spit it out! it was terrible!
But Colonel Sanders had been on a NO SALT DIET for 30
years, so his tastes were obviously different than everyone
else’s.
The Colonel wasn’t stupid! He might not like the salt, but
it was better than poverty. Thus began the Colonel’s
enormously successful Kentucky Fried Chicken legacy.
Thanks to Perry Marshall for sending me this story.
I think the “Salt” for Flying Cart is improving our designs.
This is something we are going to focus on for the next
few months.
Disclaimer: I am not a fan of KFC.
