FOOD TRENDS: Yum! Brands Gets Ready to Try Selling Chicken Without the Colonel

Yum! Brands Gets Ready to Try Selling Chicken Without the Colonel

By Venessa Wong   April 09, 2014

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Photograph by Darron Cummings/AP Photo

Grilled chicken at Kentucky Fried Chicken

As KFC loses steam in the U.S., could parent company Yum! Brands (YUM) be working on a new chicken chain to better compete against the fast-growing Chick-fil-A? That’s the speculation around a new sandwich restaurant the company has opened in Arlington, Tex., called Super Chix.

For its part, Yum insists this is merely a one-off location for a new concept it’s testing for the overseas market. And the chicken sandwich shop isn’t the only pilot program. A spokeswoman said Yum will “be exploring others in the near future for international purposes, including a Banh Shop (Asian subs), also in the Dallas area.” That’s right, the company behind KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell is weighing a move into banh mi—but fast-food diners in the U.S. will have to travel abroad or head to Dallas for a taste.

It seems odd that Yum would test Super Chix and Banh Shop in Texas if there are no plans to expand the concept in the U.S., but there is a plausible explanation: Yum’s New Concept team—led by Scott Bergren, chief executive of Pizza Hut and Yum’s chief innovation officer—is based in Dallas, so turning Texas into a test market makes it easier to monitor operations and product development.

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Super Chix’s menu makes it look a lot like a poultry-focused version of the Five Guys hamburger chain, and Ad Age compared it to KFC’s nemesis, Chick-fil-A. Customers start with a basic chicken burger and get to pick toppings, along with the expected options of fries or chicken tenders. The marketing seems more premium than KFC; Super Chix heralds its signature product as “the last true chicken sandwich.” It’s just not the last American chicken sandwich.

Goodbye, Pizza Hut -- Why Better Quick-Serve Pizza is the Next Big Dining Trend

Tired of barely-edible, cheap pizza? You’re not alone.  Check out the latest pizza trends in North America on Forbes.com 

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Photo courtesy of Blaze Pizza

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Blaze Pizza

Headquarters: Pasadena, Calif.

Founded: 2011

Slogan/Motto: "Custom Built. Fast-Fire'd."

Restaurants: 2

Restaurants forecast by year-end: 15

Why they're hot: Custom-built pizzas on scratch-made dough cook to bubbly perfection in 2 minutes over an open flame. Upcoming openings will bring Blaze cross-country to the Midwest, New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey.

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For decades, fast-food pizza has been all about price. The big chains knocked themselves out to offer coupons and deals. The price of a large pizza sank to the $5-$7 range.

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While many of the big contenders stuck with canned veggies, generic dough, and the lowest-priced bulk cheese they could find, some diners began to look elsewhere for pizza they’d actually enjoy eating. New pizzerias started to open that were set up like Chipotle — organic/local/healthy/gluten-free ingredients you choose from to customize your pie, and your pizza is ready within minutes. And it’s delicious.

Diners have flocked to these budding restaurant chains, which the industry calls “fast casual” pizza restaurants. Many of these new, artisanal pizza chains are growing rapidly to keep up with consumer demand for their delectable pies.

Here are four reasons why the dominance of cheap, fast-food pizza may be ending:

1. Aging diners have more money — and more refined tastes. As adults age and the kids leave the nest, we tend to have more disposable cash. Our tastes get more sophisticated, too.

When you don’t have to buy pizza for the whole softball team, paying $23 for a large pizza instead of $7 becomes less of an issue. You can splurge a little for a more authentic pie with better ingredients.

2. Investors are buying in. Just last month, 900-unit chain Buffalo Wild Wings bought a stakein one next-wave pizza upstart, year-old PizzaRev. When established chains start to buy in, you know they sense a new trend in motion — and they want to make sure they’ve got a piece of the action. Savvy ‘Shark Tank’ investor Mark Cuban bought into natural-pizza startup Naked Pizza in 2010.

Some big names in pizza are investing in building their own better-pizza concept, as with longstanding chain Pizza Inn’s two-year-old entrant, Pie Five. The new chain — which promises a 5-minute, custom-built gourmet pizza — has grown to 10 restaurants in Texas, is expanding to Utah, and has deals for 40 more units. Uber-chef Wolfgang Puck is in the game, too, with three Wolfgang Puck Pizza Bar units so far.

3. Seasoned restaurant executives are involved. The founders of many upstart chains have deep restaurant industry expertise — or are building quickly on the success of one artisanal-pizza chain to start others.

A former Morton’s exec. recently took control of 6-unit Go Roma in Chicago, and a co-founder of Seattle’s MOD Pizza is a former Seattle Coffee Co and Starbucks SBUX +0.45% exec. Another MOD co-founder, James Markham, is on his third pizza startup now, having gone on to found Pieology in Los Angeles and Project Pie in Las Vegas.

4. The industry is noticing. In February, the National Restaurant Association announced it had formed a Pizza Industry Council to help better serve the growing numbers of pizza operators. This marked fast-casual pizza’s arrival as an emergent, increasingly important niche within fast food.

Sure, it’ll be a while before artisanal, organic pizza overtakes top chain Pizza Hut, which has over 13,000 restaurants worldwide. But a growing segment of diners are gravitating toward more mouth-watering choices — especially in major markets — and are opting to vote with their palates instead of their wallets on where to pick up a pie.

What’s your favorite gourmet pizza? Leave a comment and tell us what you love about your best-tasting pizza brand.

To see how your choice stacks up, click here to see 13 of the hottest better-pizza chains.