In “Tasting Kentucky in Tiananmen,” Gravy producers Ishan Thakore and Katie Jane Fernelius explore how KFC became one of the most popular restaurant chains in China, and what its dominance reveals about other huge Southern firms. 

KFC is now part of the corporate conglomerate Yum! Brands, which includes chains like Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. But it has humble origins — Harland Sanders started the brand in Corbin, Kentucky, as a service station off the road. The chain grew through franchise agreements and by the 1980s was looking to expand abroad. As Zachary Karabell, author of Superfusion: How China and America Became One Economy and Why the World's Prosperity Depends on It, explains, China in the ‘80s was a blank canvas for businesses. That presented all sorts of risks, but also potentially unlimited upside. 

Like a hungry youth soccer team diving into a bucket of fried chicken after a game (an oddly specific reference from Ishan’s childhood), KFC went all in. It brought in middle-managers from Taiwan, developed a logistics network, and treated store openings like grand affairs. But it could not avoid major geopolitical issues. Two years after KFC opened its flagship branch off of Tiananmen Square, Chinese troops there killed an estimated hundreds of people to quash political protests. 

But within a week, KFC reopened on the Square, catering now to soldiers instead of students demanding change. KFC took off and, by 2011, according to a Harvard Business Review case study, KFC was on average opening one restaurant a day in China. 

This growth came at a cost. Bart Elmore, an environmental historian and associate professor of history at the Ohio State University, charted the rise of several Southern multinationals, including FedEx, Delta Airlines and Coca-Cola in his book Country Capitalism: How Corporations from the American South Remade Our Economy and the Planet. Elmore explains how servicing goods to the countryside made corporations enormously wealthy, and how those firms relied on the Global South for materials and markets. But that quest for global ubiquity had severe environmental impacts, including by KFC, such as emissions and pollution. 

For Elmore, and hopefully for listeners, acknowledging the economic history of the South is one step towards addressing the social and environmental issues wrought by unchecked economic growth.

 Music featured in this episode includes "Borough" and "The Crisper" by Blue Dot Sessions.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to guest Zachary Karabell and his book Superfusion, which lays out the history of KFC in China. Zachary also founded The Progress Network and hosts the podcast What Could Go Right?

Thanks to Bart Elmore for his perspective on the impact of Southern companies around the world. You can read more about those firms in his newly released book Country Capitalism. 

Although they were not featured in this episode, a big thank you to historian Adrian Miller for providing context about fried chicken’s origins, as well as to Christine Ha, who owns several restaurants in Houston. 

Gravy is proud to be a part of APT Podcast Studios.

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