The food industry has jumped the shark. KFC and Cheetos have teamed up to give us the KFC Cheetos Chicken Sandwich, rolling out nationwide on Monday, July 1st. We should note that the sandwich has already been available in Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia for test-marketing purposes. So this appears to indicate a successful test, a sandwich that people actually want to buy...?
Just why?
This bright orange abomination combines Extra Crispy Chicken, a special Cheetos sauce and actual Cheetos to give us a sandwich that can be called a lot of things, but it can't be called healthy.
I'm sure a lot of people will think this looks delicious; and who knows, it actually might be. But when the purpose becomes gimmick and marketing tie-in rather than actual, you know, food, that's when i'm moving on. KFC is selling outrageous ideas like chicken and Cheetos as a way to draw attention to themselves. And when you learn that most fast-food restaurant chains except Chick-Fil-A have experienced mostly flat sales, KFC's strategy begins to make sense. Their stores have less than one third the sales volume of Chick-Fil-A, their biggest fast-food competitor among chicken restaurants. Chick-Fil-A wins with cute cows and a genius "closed Sunday" strategy, not to mention a pretty good chicken sandwich, KFC is better known for the Colonel, and some pretty crazy marketing ideas -- like this Chickendale's ad for Mother's Day...
The new Chicken Cheetos sandwich will likely be a success, even if most of us decide to take a pass. We actually have precedent, over at Burger King. A few years ago, BK introduced Mac N' Cheetos, which was basically mac & cheese stuffed into something resembling a Cheetos puff. That proved successful enough to bring back the next year.