Gelyn C. Cruz Prof.

Barrameda
Assignment Jan 13,2017

INTRODUCTION

The company chosen for analysis is Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) fast food
restaurants. The company's headquarters are found at Kentucky in the US.
Additionally, it is one of the most well known restaurant chains in the world
especially with reference to chicken. It boasts of over eleven thousand restaurants
located in over eighty countries of the world. Examples here include, UK, China,
Thailand, Kuwait, Spain and Barbados, Puerto Rico, Pakistan and many more.
The company's jar maproduct is chicken. These are served in various forms such
a Chunky chicken hot pie, chicken fillets, chicken sandwiches among others. On
top of these, the company also serves a variety of burgers and other non-chicken
related foods. In total, there are three hundred products that the company offers
the public. KFC is part of a global restaurant system known as Yum! This is the
reason why the company normally teams up with other restaurants under the
Yum! Brand like Taco Bell and Pizza Hut.

KFC UNETHICAL ISSUES OR BEHAVIORS

KFC is responsible for the suffering and brutal slaughter of over 800,000,000
chickens a year. This is well known, and well documented fact.

KFC employs harsh conditions for their chickens throughout their entire lives,
from being trapped in an extremely small cage(smaller than all legal cages in
Europe) with up to five other chickens, to being scalded alive at the slaughter
house. These are common abuses in KFC factory farms, and even worse abuses,
such as chickens being stomped on and having their limbs ripped off, have been
documented by animal rights organizations such as PETA, and even KFC's own
animal welfare advisers agree that these conditions are unethical and need to be
changed.

KFC is an industry leader, and as such is an example for other chicken

restaurants. This is why KFC has to change its inhumane treatment of chickens,
because if we do not force them to change, it will be matter of time before other
restaurant chains change their practices to resemble KFC's in an attempt to
reduce costs. The lives of hundreds of millions of chickens (intelligent, sentient
beings capable of feeling pain) are more important than corporations like KFC
making more money.
The simplest way to show that you don't support KFC is by boycotting them until
they change their ways. A more effective and wide reaching approach is to no
longer eat meat products all together. Some people find this too much of a
stretch, but those who make the change rarely look back.

KFC's Entry in India

Foreign fast food companies were allowed to enter India during the early 1990s
due to the economic liberalization policy of the Indian Government. KFC was
among the first fast food multinationals to enter India.

On receiving permission to open 30 new outlets across the country, KFC opened
its first fast-food outlet in Bangalore in June 1995. Bangalore was chosen as the
launch pad because it had a substantial upper middle class population, with a
trend of families eating out. It was considered India's fastest growing metropolis
in the 1990s. Apart from Bangalore, PepsiCo planned to open 60 KFC and Pizza
Hut outlets in the country in the next seven years. However, KFC got embroiled
in various controversies even before it started full- fledged business in India.
When the issue of granting permission to multinational food giants to set up
business in the country came up for discussion in the Indian parliament, some
members from the opposition parties were vocal in their displeasure...

From the very first day of opening its restaurant, KFC faced problems in the form
of protests by angry farmers led by the Karnataka Rajya Ryota Sangha (KRRS).
The farmers leader, Nanjundaswamy, who led these protests, vehemently
condemned KFC's entry into India, saying that it was unethical to promote highly
processed 'junk food' in a poor country like India with severe malnutrition
problems. Nanjundaswamy expressed concern that the growing number of
foreign fast food chains would deplete India's livestock, which would adversely
affect its agriculture and the environment. He argued that non-vegetarian fast-
food restaurants like KFC would encourage Indian farmers to shift from
production of basic crops to more lucrative varieties like animal feed and meat,
leaving poorer sections of society with no affordable food. KRRS held a
convention on November 01, 1995 to protest the entry of fast food multinationals
and the Westernization of local agriculture...

The case highlights the ethical issues involved in Kentucky Fried Chicken's (KFC)
business operations in India.The regulatory authorities found that KFC's
chickens did not adhere to the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954.
Chickens contained nearly three times more monosodium glutamate (popularly
known as MSG, a flavor enhancing ingredient) as allowed by the Act. Since the
late 1990s, KFC faced severe protests by People for Ethical Treatment of Animals
(PETA), an animal rights protection organization. PETA accused KFC of cruelty
towards chickens and released a video tape showing the ill-treatment of birds in
KFC's poultry farms.

However, undeterred by the protests by PETA and other animal rights

organizations, KFC planned a massive expansion program in India.
Issues:

Understand the significance of cultural, economic, regulatory and ecological

issues while establishing business in a foreign country

Appreciate the need for protecting animal rights in developed and developing
countries like India

Understand the importance of ethics in doing business

Examine the reasons for protests of PETA

Identify solutions for KFC's problems in Ind

KFC and Yum Brands sued for false statements

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals are seeking an injunction to stop
"deceptive statements" by KFC and its parent company on animal welfare issues.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) filed a complaint in
California Superior Court today, seeking an injunction against the KFC and its
parent company, Yum! Brands (Yum), for making "false statements with regard
to its animal welfare practices".

The controversial campaign group claims to have proof of grotesque abuses

inflicted upon chickens by KFC suppliers.

PETA contends that statements KFC are making about animal welfare mislead
animal-friendly consumers and are unlawfully deceptive. They are asking the
court for an injunction to stop the defendants from continuing to make such
statements.

KFC using oil which contains Tran's fatty acids

Being one of the most popular fast food restaurants and with millions of people
patronising the products and foods offered by the company, it is important the
company adheres to ethical standards specifically in terms of providing healthy
foods. However, it has been observed that Kentucky Fried Chicken is using oil
which contains Trans fatty acids. This kind of oil is noted to increase
cholesterol and even increased the risk of having heart disease. As authorities
discovered this, the case was being carried over by the consumer group Center for
Science in the Public Interest and told the company to use healthier cooking
products than the one they are using.

Trans fatty acids have been the topic of much debate among nutrition scientists.
They are by-products of hydrogenation of liquid vegetable oils in the manufacture
of margarines and hydrogenated fats to formulate commercially prepared baked
goods and fried foods (1995) like what have been accused to KFC.

Gram for gram, they are believed to be twice as damaging as saturated fat. The
Nutrition Action Health letter, published by the Center for Science in the Public
Interest (CSPI), reported in 1997 that in clinical studies Trans fat raised peoples
blood cholesterol about as much as saturated fat did. Because trans-fatty acids
are not listed on food labels, they are invisible to consumers. The CSPI found that
the trans-fat content in most chains French fries equaled or even exceeded the
amount of saturated fat. That means a big order of fries has as much bad fat as a
signature burger. With the negative effect of this to the people, KFC has been
faced with problems in terms of following business ethics and finding ways to
find solutions to these kinds of issue.

KFC does business with facilities that torture chickens

Amounting to about 850 million chickens a year, even though KFC claims to have
an animal welfare board. By doing business with inhumane companies, KFC is
condoning unnecessary chicken suffering.
Before being crammed into dangerous cages resulting in broken body parts,
chickens' sensitive beaks are chopped off without any painkillers. They are left
suffering in unsanitary conditions reeking of ammonia and feces. Once taken out
of the cages, chickens endure further torment by obviously sick individuals who
need to prove their so called human superiority by beating, burning and ripping
off chickens' heads while they are still alive.

KFC claims on its site that consumers around the world "enjoy more than 300" of
its products. I wonder if those same people would enjoy visiting KFC's "Supplier
of the Year" slaughterhouse in West Virginia to witness all the violence against
defenseless chickens?

Boycott KFC and its affiliates. Show KFC that it must adopt and enforce an
animal welfare program if it intends to keep any customers.

Another issue that the company is currently grappling with is firmly tied to the
nature of the industry that the company operates in; fast food restaurant.
According to health experts and other nutritionists, the type of fats utilised when
cooking foods highly affects the nutritional and health value of the food. One
particular type of fat that has received so much attention from the corresponding
individuals is Trans fats. Trans fats are those types of fats that are emanated from
oil during the hardening process. The purpose of these trans fats is to prolong
shelf life and to make commodities prepared through baking last longer. Despite
these good qualities, trans fats can bring about complicated health diseases that
many people in the UK are fighting, these include;

Obesity
Diabetes
Coronary heart disease
Other disorders

Suggestions to improvement

1. According to PETA or another animal right organizations animal should

slaughtered in the Islamic way or zibah or dont cruel with
chicken(animal).
2. Indian protest against the KFC is well known so now the KFC needs to
acquaint with the environment of country and its culture because Indian
has protested against this Junk food which leads to many diseases.
3. KFC take some actions to improve the quality of chicken according to
PETA
4. its a practically experience that KFC( D-ground branch) employees
behavior with customer is not good and customer also claim to their
headquarter through web site claim boxes so they should behave properly
with customers.
5. KFC must not doing their business to torture the chickens and satisfy their
customers according to their needs
Conclusion

As a restaurant operating under the fast food industry, there are some ethical
issues that come into play when considering the nature of the industry itself.
This is especially since the Health Ministry in the region announced a battle
against obesity. Also, KFC also has to deal with different ethical issues in their
capacity as a business corporation. Any company worth its salt should have a
code of ethics and must be prepared to stick by it KFC has breached a
substantial number of their ethics codes. However, one must not assume that
the ethical issues facing KFC are one sided. Most times, individuals tend to
focus on the negative aspects of ethics and fail to look at things from another
angle. The purpose of this report on KFC unethical issues was to provide an
in-depth analysis of the fast food industry through two contrary ideas; the
moral and legal obligations that KFC has adhered to and also the ethical
misgivings that the company has engaged in too.

Reference:
www.kfcpakistan.com/
www.helium.com/items/433031-kfc-the-torture-of-chickens
www.ethicalcorp.com/content.asp?ContentID=808