Sanders: the World

Colonel Sanders:

From Corbin to the World

A most unlikely restaurant opened 50 years ago in the dusty little town of Corbin, Ky. The restaurant only had one table and six chairs. in a small front room of a gas station. The kitchen was in the living quarters behind the station.

Harland Sanders, the 40~year-old station operator, was also the chief cook and cashier. He wasn't dreaming of starting a worldwide chain of restaurants. He wasn't a Colonel yet, and he wasn't worried about titles .. He was worried about making enough in the depression year of 1930 to support his wife and three children.

Sanders would cook the noon and evening meals for his family, and if some customers would come along he would sell the dinners and cook again for the family. If there weren't any customers, the family would go ahead and eat.

That's the Colonel as a seven-year-old boy, pictured with his mother.

As a young man, Harland Sanders held many different kinds of jobs, from railroad engineer 10 insurance salesman.

If you look closely, you'll see the words "Sanders Servistation" on the side of the building on the left of the road. Several years. later, the establishment on the right. side of the Toad became the Harland Sanders Court & Cafe.

Business was not exactly booming in Corbin, which sits on the edge of the Appalachian Mountains in southeastern Kentucky. The country was in the worst depression in its history. The stock market had collapsed late the previous year.

Banks were closing their doors, wiping out the life savings of many. Farmers couldn't pay their mortgages and lost their land. Factories and businesses went bankrupt. One worker out of four lost his job. Former executives sold apples on corners. There were soup kitchens and breadlines.

Sanders' original service station in Nicholasville had failed earlier that year because farmers couldn't pay for the gas he'd sold them on credit .. To pay the last month's rent on the station, he had been forced to sell his hoist. Sanders' booming business had been wiped out, like thousands of others, by the great crash of 1929.

It wasn't the first time he'd been wiped out, and it wouldn't be the last. Just a few years earlier Sanders had lostall the money he had in an acetylene gas lighting business that he'd

formed, because Delco had come along with an electrical farm lighting system that was better, He then took a job selling Michelin tires and was doing well until he was laid off when the company closed its plant in New Jersey.

Life had never been easy for Sanders. His father died when little Harland was six years old, and it fell to him to take care of his younger brother and sister.

A stepfather literally kicked 12- year-old Harland out of the house, which meant the end of his schooling and the beginning ofa life of hard work. He discovered he loved work and his ability to doa man's job even while he was still a child.

After working for farmers came a job as a streetcar conductor in New Albany, Ind., where an Army recruiter talked a 16-year-old into lying about his age and enlisting. Shipped to Cuba to put down an insurrection that never occurred, a homesick Private Sanders took advantage of an offer for an early discharge and went to live with his aunt and uncle in Huntsville, Ala ..

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III the early 30's, the COlonel worked out riftbis kitchen in Corbin.

Working first as a blacksmith's helper in a railyard, the husky Sanders soon was promoted to a job of oleaning the ashes out of the engines. When a fireman was late, Sanders volunteered to take his place and SOOIl bad a regular job as fireman.

The extra money was welcome because following his mother's separation from his stepfather, the teen-agel: was supporting his mother, brother and little sister. While still a teen, he married; and just before their first child was born, Sanders lost his job in a dispute with the railroad management.

It took several jobs before Sanders realized that he wasn't cut out to. work for anyone. A hot temper, a legacy from his Irish ancestors, and a desire to be: his own boss resulted in some less than amicable leave-takings.

Ambitious and hard-working, but short on formal education, Sanders took correspondence courses. While he was a railroad fireman he took a LaSalle correspondence course about steam engines. Later, aspiring to be "another Clarence Darrow," a famous attorney of the 19205, Sanders studied the law through LaSalle extension courses.

For a couple of years he practiced Jaw in a justice of peace court, but that career was cut short by a fight with one of the justices. Sanders then worked successfully to help get the law repealed that authorized justice of peace courts.

Out of a job again, he returned to New Albany where he worked as a section hand on the railroad, replacing ties and driving spikes. After a day of backbreaking work on the rails, he would moonlight by unloading coal from railcars. When there wasn't any coal to unload, he'd clean privies. No job that needed doing was too hard or demeaning for Sanders.

Then he heard from a relative about the insurance business. Borrowing a suit, he applied for and got a job as an insurance salesman. Pounding the pavement from early morning until the lights went out at night; Sanders sold insurance door-to-door. He became the leading salesman in the district in a matter of months.

As his persuasive talents Sharpened (and his insurance career ended by a dispute over commissions) , Sanders became a full-fledged entrepreneur. He sold stock in a company that bought a

ferry that was to run between New Albany and Louisville, carrying passengers and cars. Following a short stint as the seeretary of a Chamber of Commerce in Columbus, Tnd., he invested in the Ill-fated acetylene lighting.business.

Nothing in his career-s-except his almost unbelievable capacity for hard work.-would seem to qualify Sanders for a career as a restaurateur. And i.r the nation was suffering from a depression, the Corbinarea was dose to death.

Even during the roaring 205, Corbin was poor. The only prosperous people were the bootleggers. The area was known as "hell's half-acre" and it was little exaggeration. A weak man couldn't have survived.

In spite of the times, Sanders' business did well because be did everything he could to please his customers. He washed the windshields and filled tbe radiators of every car that stopped,

continued

ADVENTURES IN

GOOD EATING

In 1939 the Colonel's restaurant was' listed in this Issue of Duncan Hioes' "Adventures in OOQd Bating," one of the leading restaurant guides of the time.

Colonel Sanders:

From Corbin to the World

continued

even if they were only asking for directions. Given the opportunity, he'd sweep out the floors of the cars and fill their tires with air. This kind of service was as rare then as it is today, and more and more customers began doing business with Sanders.

He depended heavily on the tourists and business travelers going between Detroit, Columbus, Cincinnati and Chattanooga, Atlanta and Miami.

Cleanliness was an obsession with

. Sanders. And travelers who had suffered through a series of roadside diners and "greasy spoons" appreciated tbe difference. He wanted things to be right for his customers.

He even delayed opening his dining room, in spite of the fact that he desperately needed the added income it could bring, until he could get a linoleum "rug" to put on the floor. He persuaded a hardware store owner in Corbin to sell him the $16 rug on time, because he didn't have the money.

Travelers loved his food. He'd been taught to cook by his mother, who supported the family by sewing for neighbors. Harland would cook while his mother sewed.

From his mother he learned what seasonings go with what meats and vegetables. He also discovered that he liked cooking, a discovery that would enrich the world. But success did not come overnight. It came in small increments.

First was the move across the road to a larger service station with room for a real restaurant. It grew steadily, if slowly, as his reputation for good food attracted tourists who made it a point to stop at "Sanders' Servistation" on their way along U.S. 25.

Sanders' fame grew. Governor Ruby Laffon made him a Kentucky Colonel in 1935 in recognition of his contributions to the state's cuisine. And in 1939 his establishment was listed in Duncan Hines' "Adventures in Good Eating."

Through the next decade he experimented with improvements to his

In 1964, the Colonel sold his company to Jack Massey Oeft) and John Y. Brown. Jr. (right).

basic seasoning to "enhance the light and delicate flavor of chicken."

For years he refined and improved the seasoning recipe until he had it just right. But there was still the problem of cooking time. Travelers are always in a hurry and frying chicken took a halt-hour,

The pressure cooker, which was introduced in 1939, was the answer. The Colonel conceived of a way to use it for frying chicken, a use the inventor had never dreamed of.

World War II started and gas rationing cut Sanders' business severely,

but with the end of the war it boomed again. He added a motel and expanded the restaurant to 142 seats. Things were really going well when the Federal Government built an interstate highway that by-passed Corbin, forcing him to sell his operations at auction to cover his debts.

The Colonel was 66 years old, but he felt he was too young to retire on Social Security> which paid _ him $105 a month. He decided to franchise his regionally famous chicken recipe. Traveling through Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky, he called on restaurant

This is typical of the crowds drawn to a Kentucky Fried Chicken store during the grand opening sale. This one was owned by Don Delaria in Minneapolis, Minn.

George Jessel (far left) and Johnny Carson clowned with the Colonel when be appeared on the "Toni~ht Show" !n. 1964, With him, accompanied by four armed guards, was a huge fishbowl holding two million dollars, representing the sale of the Colonel's corporation to John Y. Brown, Jr. and lack Massey.

owners, cooking his chicken for them and their employees.

If they liked it enough to add it to their menus, they agreed to pay the Colonel a few cents for every Kentucky Fried Chicken dinner they sold. The Colonel hoped to have income of, maybe $12,000 a year.

Within five years the Colonel bad 400 franchisees in the United States and Canada. Four years later there were more than 600 outlets, including the first overseas in England. The paperwork was multiplying and the Colonel began to notice that his longtime friends and associates were disappearing.

About that time, in 1964, John Y.

Brown, Jr., 29, a young Louisville lawyer and Jack Massey, 60, a Nashville financier, offered to buy the Colonel's business for $2 million and the guarantee of a lifetime job. The Colonel sold.

The Colonel could have sat back and rested, but that was never his way. Instead he took to the road, promoting Kentucky Fried Chicken. His first

national TV appearance was on What's My Line, and the panel couldn't guess what the Colonel's "line" was.

As the business grew, money became available for advertising, and the Colonel naturally became the system's spokesman in commercials. In 1971 the Kentucky Fried Chicken Corporation was sold to Heublein, Inc., for $275 million. And in the intervening years the number of KFC outlets has more than doubled and sales now exceed $2 billion a year.

It's a long way from the little onetable "restaurant" in Corbin, but the Colonel is still hustling to build the business. Retirement and vacations are not in his vocabulary. Besides, he can't think of anything he'd rather do than visit KFC stores and help KFC's business.

What's more, the Colonel has this theory that "people wi1l rust out quicker'n they'll ever wear out, and I'll be damned if I'll ever rust out."

It's been an exciting 50 years, but the Colonel doesn't want to spend any time reminiscing about the past. He's too busy looking to the future. G

The Colonel created Kentucky Fried Chicken under pressure

Colonel Sanders was always experimenting with food at his restaurant in Corbin, Ky., in those early days of the 1930's. For instance, he kept adding this and that to the flour for frying chicken and came out with a pretty good-tasting product. But customers still had to wait 30 minutes for it while he fried it up in an iron skillet.

That was just too long a wait he thought. Most other restaurants serving what they called "Southern" fried chicken fried it in deep fat. That was quicker, but the taste wasn't the same.

Then the Colonel went to a demonstration of a "new-fangled gizmo" called a pressure cooker sometime in the late 1930's. During the demonstration, green beans turned out tasty and done just right in only a few minutes. This set his mind to thinking. He wondered how it might work on chicken.

He bought one of the pressure cookers and made a few adjustments. After a lot of experimenting with cooking time, pressure, shortening temperature and level, Eureka! He'd found a way to fry chicken, under pressure, and come out with the best chicken he'd ever tasted.

There are several different kinds of cookers used to make Original Recipe Chicken today. But everyone of them fries under pressure, the principle established by this now-famous Kentuckian.

The Colonel's original pressure cooker, the one that started it all, is still around. It holds a place of honor in the Colonel Sanders Museum at the KFC headquarters building ill Louisville. G

Colonel Sanders listens attentively to the story of the first pressure cooker he used, now on display in the Colonel Harland Sanders Museum in Louisville.

Training has changed but the message is the same

On the job training. That's the only way anybody was trained in the early days of Kentucky Fried Chicken. And the Colonel was the teacher.

There wasn't any operations manual, just a few recipes the Colonel left with franchisees after he showed them how to prepare Kentucky Fried Chicken in their own kitchens.

Since all the early franchisees operated restaurants, all the kitchens were different and it just made good sense to adapt the training to their facilities. Besides, the Colonel says, most of the pioneer franchisees could not afford either the time or money to come to Shelbyville, Ky., to be trained.

Usually it took three days to get a franchisee and his cooks trained to prepare Kentucky Fried Chicken, but the Colonel still remembers one franchisee in Virginia who took six days. It seems the franchisee kept wanting to improve on the Colonel's procedures.

The Colonel's interest in training and quality hasn't changed but everything else sure has. The KFC system has just grown too large and too complex for even the hard-working Colonel to handle. If the Colonel tried to spend three days in every KFC store, it would take him roughly 500 years to make the rounds-even if he worked seven days a week. So, in addition to the C010nel, KFC has a

In the early days, the Colonel personally trained new franchisees and their cooks in the franchisees' restaurants,

whole range of programs using all different kinds of techniques.

Today's training programs are extensive, comprehensive and expensive to develop. But they're worth it and KFC Board Chairman Mike Miles says they'll continue to grow as the KFC system and the world economy get more complex.

The basic training tool is the Confidential Operations Manual, the bible of KFC store crews everywhere. But the first manual didn't come out until the company was over 10 years old. In the early days, the Colonel didn't need one because there was only one basic product-Original Recipe-and he taught the franchisees.

A manual was developed in 1964, only to be suppressed by the owners. Jack Massey and John Y. Brown were afraid competitors would get hold of the manual.

So the secret was kept, but at a price, recalls Bill Bridges, KFC's director of franchisee engineering services and one of the Colonel's first employees. Many KFe operators were kept in the dark about procedures, too.

All they had to work with was "Training Manual A," which was a 40-page potpourri of recipes and an outline of subjects to be covered in the training school. Bridges had compiled this manual with the help of Harland Yerkes, Carl Meis, who now makes cookers for KFC, and the late Jack Adams, one of the first field services men.

The runaway popularity of Kentucky Fried Chicken and growth of the system forced the company to publish an operations manual in 1970. That 129-page book has evolved and grown over the years to the 382-page manual of today.

It was urgently needed to reinforce the 4!h-day training program at the first school, which was held in a franchisee's store in southeastern Louisville, It just wasn't possible to teach everybody everything they needed to know about operating a chicken store in less than a week. And nobody could remember all the details to teach their new employees.

It's not unusual to see the Colonel stopping by the KFC National Training Center in Louisville to teach some newcomers bow to make gravy the Colonel's way.

But Jerry Haynie, the first instructor there, sure tried and so did the franchisees, who worked 12- and 14-hour days. Half the time was spent in the classroom and the other half in the kitchen.

Actually there were two kitchens in the in-line training store owned by franchisees Bob and Anna Heil. The kitchen was so small (only 18 feet wide) that a second kitchen was built in the basement. All the students simply wouldn't fit into the one kitchen.

The franchisees would come into Louisville on Sunday night, start school on Monday, have a banquet Thursday night at which the Colonel would talk, and finish at noon on Friday. The class was limited to 14

people, and they were "all draggin' their tails at the end of the week," Haynie recalls, "and so was I."

After three years in cramped quarters, the company opened a relatively spacious training store tight across the parking lot. The school was to stay there for nearly a decade, and not much changed except for the size of the faculty.

Training then moved to a training store in Hamburg, Ind., right across the river from Louisville. It had slightly more Classroom space, but it was a half-hour away from KFC's offices so the Colonel and KFC management couldn't get there as often as they'd like.

Recognizing that more and better training was needed, the KFC National Training Center was opened in September, 1977. It bears little resemblance to the original training store, which is just two- miles away. The 14,000 square-foot training center has six classrooms, three kitchens and a staff of eight.

The basic KFC management course has been extended to two weeks of learning a whole lot more than just cooking Original Recipe Chicken .. The planning, work scheduling and projection proce.<;s has become a lot more sophisticated over the years. so there's a lot more paperwork to go through, It's all part of meeting the consumers' rising expectations for ever-better QSC at Kentucky Fried Chicken, says Jack Hill, director of training.

In addition to the basic KFC management course, the school offers courses on automatic cooker operation, repair and maintenance. Within the last 18 months, seminars have been added on recruitment and selection of store managers, financial controls and field management.

Other Seminars are planned 'for real estate and construction and marketing. But. the school isn't the only place where training takes place. Instructors in the last year have given 52 field training programs to more than 1,500 KFC workers .. That's in addition to the 815 people who've gone through the school in the last year.

As significant as the Training Department numbers are, this form of training is only a small fraction of what has to occur to keep the system operating at peak efficiency--oreven operating at all,

It's the training in the store that can make or break a systernyand KFC's ill-store training programs have come a light-year in the last fWO years. The development of the STAR (Store Training and Rating) system has put KFC in the forefront of the industry.

This audio-visual training system, which is now in all company stores and is used by 297 (711 STAR systems) of the 735 franchisees, provides a structured systematic way of training individual employees about their individual jobs .. Jerry Haynie, now a franchisee uses them. He calls it "a real fine system."

It is not, however, a magic box that automatically trains employees, HilI warns. Managers must not only pro-

vide the lime for employees 10 use the system; they must also reinforce the training with demonstrations and supervision ..

But if managers use this tool properly, Hill says, it's like having the Colonel in your storeevery day to help with training. In fact the Colonel is in one of the STAR programs, talking about the history and heritage of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

The early training the Colonel gave his first franchisees was critical to the success of Kentucky Fried Chicken. It's still critical to KFC's success, which is Why so much time, money and effort goes into training.

Nobody can provide good QSC without trained employees, and KFC's goal is to provide QSC that's second to none, That's our legacy from the Colonel.

"Perfection is just barely good enough," the Colonel always says. G

Though training now is done mostly bytbe staff at the KFC National Training Center, there's sdll time fora refresher course from the Colonel. Here instructor Bart Fields gets. some expert advice on COoking Original Recipe.

Customers fondly remember the Harland Sanders Cafe

Here's what the Colonel's original restaurant in Corbin looked like in the late 1930's, The Colonel believed in the slogan above the door which read: "Good will: The disposition of a pleased customer to return to the place where he has been well treated."

The Harland Sanders Cafe is very special to Mr. and Mrs. John Gross. On November 11, 1934, they eloped. After the ceremony, the newlyweds and their two attendants stopped by the cafe for supper.

"It was a cold, snowy Sunday about 8 p.m.," recalled Mrs. Gross. "The Colonel was alone in the restaurant. He personally took our order and served us some of the best hamburgers we've ever had. That was a wedding supper to remember."

Mr. and Mrs. Huey Watkins stayed at the Sanders Motel on March 23 and 24, 1946, while on their honeymoon. Allie Lee spent her honeymoon at the Sanders Court, also. Mrs. Charles Moore went to a bridal shower at the restaurant and Mrs. Palestine Mozinge held her wedding supper there.

These were but a few of the over one hundred people who wrote in response to an ad in the Corbin, Ky., paper recently. The ad asked those who visited the Colonel's original restauran t in' the 1930's and 1940's to tell us what they remembered about it.

Mrs. Sam Gallagher remembers that her family always had Sunday dinner with the Colonel when he was in his first small gas station across the street from what was to become the Sanders Court and Cafe.

Lawrence Kidd worked for the Colonel at that small gas station. "We

were the first service station to wipe windshields for a full tank of gas," Kidd recalled.

Almost every person writing in commented on the excellence of the food to be had at the Sanders Cafe. One customer fondly remembers the Colonel s special Graham Cracker Cream Pie. Another says she had the first ice box pie she'd ever tasted, "and it was out of this world." Almost all listed chicken and ham as their favorite meals.

Many say the Colonel's restaurant was the place to eat in the area. Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Wilson went there every Sunday after church in the late 1930's. "We especially loved the chicken and dumplings and the dressing," she added. Christine Green, who's first job was working for the Colonel, says the atmosphere "was equal to the Hilton or anywhere else."

The Colonel's restaurant was known to travelers up and down U.S. 25, often called "Dixie Highway." A woman from Tennessee remembers that a trip to Lexington was not complete if they didn't stop at Sanders' restaurant. "Everyone traveling then was told about Sanders Court," added Ernest Denny. He says he always stopped there on his way to the Kentucky-Tennessee football games from 1933 to 1940.

Mavin Endris, who had her first

dinner date at the Colonel's restaurant, remembers one time when the Colonel tried out a new "chicken recipe" on her. Wanda Herron's grandmother was a cook for the Colonel when he created his Original Recipe Chicken. "I'm sure that she nor no one else realized the impact of that day," Herron added.

The Colonel was as adamant about quality, service and cleanliness then as he is today. One customer remembers "the friendly, courteous service, the excellent food and the clean restaurant."

Mrs. Nonnie Elliott adds that "if the food wasn't prepared and served right, the top of the roof came off." Virginia Prewitt mentions a sign on the menu that said something like: "Howdy, folks. I promise you a good meal. If it's not, don't pay for it."

Another item on the menu was one of the Colonel's specialties. Several customers mention the Colonel's description of that item: "Country ham breakfast-$1.50. Not worth it-but mighty good."

Paul Fisher, who worked as one of the Colonel's motel clerks and did electrical and plumbing work in the 1940's for the Colonel, sent in some menus. According to the menu, you could get two eggs, grits, biscuits and toast with honey for $1.00. Or how about two pork chops, home fries, cream gravy, biscuits and honey for $1.40.

Colonel W. S. McCracken remembers the "elegant way he operated his business and personally greeted his customers." According to McCracken, the Colonel's was "the only place in the area where shrimp, oysters and other exotic seafoods could be obtained on short order."

During the years he operated his own restaurant in Corbin, the Colonel served thousands of meals to hoards of hungry customers from all over the mid-west and south. "The food was down right good and so was the Colonel," said Inman Sherman. Many of the customers echoed C. C. Lewis who added, "We missed him in Corbin when he left." G

Sun never sets on Colonel's empire

The sun never sets on the Colonel's empire. With over 1,000 stores in 54 countries and territories around the world, Kentucky Fried Chicken has more stores in foreign countries than any other quick service restaurant

chain. .

The Colonel recognized the potential of an international business and signed up some British franchisees in 1964.

International stores may not look like the ones in the U'S, and they may not sell the same "fixin's," but the Colonel and his Original Recipe are the same worldwide.

"Consumers all over the world demand quality," said Tom Frank, Heublein International's senior vice president-foods. "We stick to the rigid standards of quality, service and cleanliness; and of course the Colonel's Original Recipe and its preparation never change."

But differences in government regulations, labor and pricing make international management a challenge different from KFe stateside operations, Frank adds.

Overseas facilities range from large sit-down restaurants to little bazaar shops. Some of the world's real estate costs are, by our standards, extremely expensive .. KFC has been forced to be more flexible in design specifications as a result.

The menu is different, too. Original Recipe is always there, but the fixin's . are designed to appeal to local tastes.

Australians eat much like Americans-they like meat with every meal. KFC's typical Australian customer is an adult who's taking a meal home to the family, usually on the weekend. "Aussies" like rotisserie chicken and peas, so these items have been added to the menu along with Original Recipe.

Much of KFC-England's business is done after 8:00 p.m, Kentucky Fried Chicken is a snack for young men after a long evening at the pub. Instead of mashed potatoes, of course, the British order "chips"-a kind of french fried potato--to go with their meal.

Guam's KFC customers sit down at tables set with Tabasco and soy sauces to spice up the tangy red rice that's served with the chicken. Middle East-

ern stores offer an onioney salad called tibouli instead of cole slaw.

The Oriental menu in Japanese KFC stores offers rice and a type of smoked chicken the Japanese are fond of. The Japanese use Kentucky Fried Chicken as a snack or a reward fora child's good behavior. The kindly face of Colonel Sanders-san beams down from street signs all over the island nation.

As in the U.S., labor is one of the major problems facing the KFC International folks-except in Japan .. Lifetime employment and religious adherence to rules are strong Japanese traits.

"KFC-Japan actually has a training camp," added Frank Japanese who want to work for Kentucky Fried Chicken undergo spartan training ina

mountain camp. They prove through rigorous physical and psychological workouts that they are worthy of a lifetime job with the company. This system. was designed not by KFC but by the Japanese themselves in response to their tough personal standards."

Many of the U.S .. fast food chains have expanded overseas. They include McDonald's, Burger King, Long J obn Silver's, Pizza Hut and Church's. None have as many units overseas as KFC does.

Like the 19th-Century Colonial British, you can travel almost anywhere and never leave the Colonel's soil. His overseas empire is now a $190,000,000 business for Heublein Corporation, 0

Women, especially mothers, are the primary purchasers of Kentucky Fried Chicken in Japan. They often use it as treats for a child's good behavior.

1930's sow seeds for restaurants today

It was the Great Depression, in capitalletters, Twenty percent of the work force was unemployed. Educated men sold apples or stood in line for nonexistent jobs.

But people were still eating out. In 193 t a maj or newspaper reported that "high-class exclusive restaurants have had a let-down in business ... while many 'popular-priced' places have gained patronage since the crash."

By 1933, specialization and stan- The Sanders Court and Cafe as it looked in the 1930·s.

dardization had become the trend. A

restaurant was no longer just a restaurant. It was a coffee shop, a sandwich shop, a soda fountain and grill or a tea room.

Liquor, wine and beer started returning to the dining scene after Prohibition was repealed in 1933. Speakeasies were becoming legitimized, the most famous of which was New York City's 21 Club.

Many of today's major restaurants and chains got their start in the 1930's, roany in buildings no larger than the Colonel's original one in Corbin, Ky.

Bob Wian created the Big Boy hamburger at "Bob's Pantry" in Southern

California more or less as a gag. AJl his high school buddies would crowd into the Pantry from time to time. One day, a friend asked for something different. So Wian stacked two meat patties separated by a bun, added some garnish, lettuce and cheese. The Big Boy double-decker cheeseburger had been born.

In New York, the Good Humor people decided it customers wouldn't come to them, they would go to the people. Soon the familiar bell of the Good Humor man was eagerly awaited by generations. of children every afternoon.

The thirties-which had started so hopelessly-ended on an up-beat. The New York World's Fair became a showcase for the great world of tomorrow. Some 60 million people were served at 80 restaurants and 346 concession stands during the run of tbe World's Fair.

It was at this Fair that the necessity of fast service-s-and perhaps fast food -was clearly illustrated, The Soda Fountain of Tomorrow at the Hall of Pharmacy extended ] 7 feet 8 inches and had the potential capacity of serving 1,200 people per hour. g

recipe," tile Colonel said. "Especially when I think how Claudia and I used to operate. She was my packing girl, my warehouse supervisor, roy delivery person-you name it. Our garage was the warehouse.

"After I hit the road selling franchises for my chicken, that left Claudia behind to l11l the orders for the seasoned flour mix. She'd fill the day's orders in little paper sacks with cellophane linings and package them for shipment She had to put them on a midnight train."

Little did the Colonel and Claudia dream in those days, that that recipe would change the way people thought about chicken. G

Original Recipe · s stili a secret

For years, Colonel Harland Sanders carried the secret recipe for his Kentucky Fried Chicken in his head and the spice mixture in his car. Today, the recipe is Jacked away in a safe in Louisville, Ky. Less than a handful of people know that multi-million dollar recipe (and they've signed strict confidentiality contracts).

Sanders developed the formula back ill the 30's when he operated a roadside restaurant and motel in Corbin, Ky. His recipe of eleven herbs and spices developed a loyal following of customers at the Sanders Motel and Cafe.

"I hand-mixed the spices in those days like mixing cement," the Colonel recalled, "on a specially cleaned con-

crete floor on my back porch in Corbin. I used a scoop to make a tunnel in the flour and then carefully mixed in the herbs and spices."

Today, security precautions protecting the secret recipe would make even James Bond proud. Very few people have the whole picture.

Due company blends a formulation that represents only part of the recipe. Another spice company blends the remainder. An IBM processing system is used to safeguard and standardize the blending ofcbe products. But neither company has the complete recipe.

"It boggles the mind just to think of all the procedures and precautions the company takes to protect my

e Colonel and others started something b-g

Colonel Sanders is one of the founding fathers of the fast food industry. And what a giant he helped bring into the world.

Fast food sales this year are estimated to reach $25.4 billion. Industry sources estimate that nearly one out of every three meals eaten away from horne is consumed in a fast food establishment. More than 90 percent of Americans over the age of 12 eat fast food on the average of 9.2 times a month.

Kentucky Fried Chicken is a big factor in the industry. Last year KFC cooked up some 2.7 billion pieces of chicken-or 10 pieces for every man, woman and child in the country. There are about 4,500 KFC restaurants in the U.S. employing about 70,000 employees.

Worldwide there are more than 6,000 KFC stores with sales of more than $2 biUion. The Colonel's Original Recipe Chicken is found in 54 countries around the world.

Most people tend to think that Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald's, Burger King and Pizza Hut have been around forever. They haven't.

The Colonel put out his first franchise to Pete Harman in Salt Lake City in 1952. A year later the first McDonald's opened in Des Plaines, Ill. Both chains began franchising and within 15 years there were some 25,000 fast food outlets in the O.S. with average sales of $116,000. Today there are 50,000 outlets with sales averages of $365,000. In the last 10 years, the number of units has doubled and the average sales volumes have tripled.

The biggest- reason for the success of KFC and other fast food chains is that they provide good food at reasonable prices, in clean and friendly surroundings.

Another reason for the rapid growth of fast food is the fact that the founders franchised their concepts. Franchisees obtained the financing [or land, building and equipment.

Few companies in the world could have afforded to invest in all these

facilities, and the Colonel sure didn't have that kind of money. Today the investment in KFC facilities in the U.S. alone is estimated to be more than $1 billion.

Even if the money had been available to the Colonel, he couldn't have found sites and arranged for all the buildings. But franchisees could and did. In return, franchisees got the Colonel's rights to use his products, processes and trademarks. Everybody benefited.

The very first fast food chain didn't franchise. That was White Castle, a hamburger chain that opened its first unit in 1921. Nearly 60 years later the chain still has fewer than 175 units. Unless you have lived in the lower Midwest you've probably never heard of the White Castle.

By way of contrast, almost everybody in the country knows about Kentucky Fried Chicken and Colonel Sanders, McDonald's and Burger King, three of the largest fast food chains in the world.

One of the reasons js advertisingmillions of dollars worth of advertising that keeps the chains' products before the consumer. Individual operators couldn't begin to afford this kind of

advertising, which helps generate extra sales that allow the chains to sell more products at a lower cost.

Fast food chains employ more than 500,000 food- and customer-service workers, managers and assistants. The majority of these workers are teenagers working part time while they go to school. For many it's their introduction into the working world.

These half-million workers feed nearly 200 million hungry Americans every month. Among these are some 2.5 million people whose job depeods on the fast food industry-poultry producers and processors, soybean farmers and shortening makers, uniform manufacturers, paper company employees, and so on. And that's just in the U.S.

KFC and other fast food chains have found homes in virtually every free country of the world, aiding their economies and ours. It's brought something good, wholesome and delicious from America iota their lives.

It all started with the Colonel and a few hardy pioneers like him. And its growing bigger every day in every corner of the free world.

The Colonel didn't start out to change the world, but he sure did. iii