Chinese KFC stores have recently been removing “Easy Kitchen” frozen pre-made products, with some store employees revealing that the reason for the removal is likely due to poor sales. This news made it to the top search on Baidu on November 17th.
According to the Chinese media Jiu Pai News on November 16th, besides KFC stores in various locations removing “Easy Kitchen” frozen pre-made products, the Tmall “KFC Easy Kitchen flagship store” has been closed, and the Douyin account “KFC Easy Kitchen flagship store” has not been updated for over 3 months. The KFC APP store has removed the Easy Kitchen section, and in the mini program, the ordering pages of many stores in Beijing, Shanghai, and Wuhan no longer display the “Easy Kitchen” category.
An employee at a KFC store in Shenzhen told the media that only one nearby store is still selling frozen pre-made products, and once the inventory is sold out, they might not have it anymore as other stores have removed it. A staff member at a KFC store in Guangzhou also mentioned that the Easy Kitchen products are no longer being produced, possibly due to poor sales, and many customers were unaware of the frozen pre-cooked chicken available in the store.
Customer service at the Tmall KFC official flagship store also revealed, “The Easy Kitchen products have been removed for a long time, no specific reasons have been notified, and it is also uncertain whether they will be restocked in the future.”
Since 2020, KFC has introduced “Easy Kitchen” pre-made foods such as boneless chicken, cheesy baked rice, and steak. However, consumers have mixed reviews on the taste of KFC’s Easy Kitchen products.
One customer mentioned that they have purchased some Easy Kitchen products, but the taste is quite different from what is made in-store.
In response, a prominent consumer industry analyst, Yang Huaiyu, analyzed to Jiu Pai Finance that despite KFC’s extensive network of thousands of stores and customer traffic, “KFC’s pre-made products need to have more unique selling points, better quality, or more competitive prices, and effective marketing needs to be carried out.” It is highly likely that KFC removed Easy Kitchen products based on profit margin considerations.
Some netizens pointed out that KFC’s pre-made meals are still somewhat expensive.
Netizen “Forget_free” commented, “The price of these pre-made meals was a bit overpriced to begin with, almost the same as the ones made in the store, why bother buying uncooked ones? Moreover, the pre-made stuff they sell can be found online for almost half the price, of course they won’t sell well.”
“qinniy” suggested, “Just lower the price, and sales will immediately pick up.”