KFC Turns to Fish in Vietnam
Tue January 27, 2004 12:57 AM ET
[note: maybe I need to talk to a chain like KFC, they like to think on large scale international operations -g- pb]
reuters.com
HANOI (Reuters) - U.S. fast food chain KFC said on Tuesday it had closed almost all its chicken outlets in Vietnam and would switch the chain to a fish menu, after a bird flu outbreak that has killed six people in the country.
Eight KFC restaurants were shut Monday in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's commercial center, which has banned the sale of poultry and culled more than two million chickens.
"It has been very hard for us," Nguyen Chi Kien, KFC Vietnam deputy country director, told Reuters.
Kien said KFC, a subsidiary of Yum Brands Inc, would reopen its eateries at the end of this week and offer fish, including fish burgers.
KFC, one of the communist country's few international fast food chains, along with the Philippines' Jollibee Foods Corp., operates nine restaurants in southern Vietnam.
Chicken has also disappeared from upscale restaurants, hotels and homes in big cities in the Southeast Asian country but is still widely available in the countryside and at street stalls.
Five children were among the six people killed in Vietnam by the bird flu virus, which has spread to many Asian countries.
KFC, which had been using around 30,000 locally farmed chickens per month, said it might import frozen chickens from North America to replace local supplies. |
