KFC China’s Food Waste Problem

KFC China created a great promotion with an unexpected problem: People are more interested in the “surprise box” of unique, limited edition artwork/toys/collectibles than the food itself–and are dumping the food!

Screenshot of CNN.com’s link preview.

I may have come up with a similar idea a long time ago that was pre-smart phone, pre-global public internet too. It was NOT acceptable to those I pitched it to. Back then, all the additional work wouldn’t be cost effective at all (imagine duplicates of the receipts, mechanical cash registers, more cash than credit card transactions on average, manual/hand-written ledgers for recording each donation, etc.). But now, it comes to mind again. Perhaps the now device-savvy world is ready to do this. Restaurants post-COVID quarantines needing all the income they can get to stay open may be interested too. Here is my pitch!

From my post on Linkedin.com:

Whether they pre-order online, on an app, or stand in the store.. how about purchasing the food package and just before the order is charged they are offered to “DONATE FOOD TO CHARITY?” So instead of serving the food to a customer who is going to toss it before even leaving the store… KFC can “Keep the food, donate the food cost to charity”, and give the toy gift to the buyer. THE FULL TRANSACTION STILL HAS TO OCCUR. A buyer of the food must actually transact for it, not make another deal. They can choose not to take the food though.

Actually, this is NOT a bad idea for any retail food operation. Offer to sell a product like… a $8 burger and a person can choose to “donate the food to charity”… so the greater part of the $8 goes to charity, and the restaurant keeps a percentage and never makes and packages, serves that food. A scenario would be going to a restaurant (fast food or not) and instead of buying just 4 meals for the 4 people sitting at the table, they can order other things on the menu and choose “donate the food to charity”… but the reality is the restaurant does NOT donate the actual food itself, but the cost or the price minus a percentage to donate the $ to a charity that handles food?

I was actually trying to stay AFK (away from keyboard) for a day or two but I felt a need to just look at online news a few minutes this evening. Got inspired! Disclaimer: I am a fan and eat KFC’s chicken and sides in the United States.