Fast forward to 2009, when KFC decided the security for the handwritten copy of the recipe needed a flashy upgrade. It installed a 770-pound safe that is under constant video and motion-detection surveillance and surrounded by two feet of concrete on every side — just in case any would-be thieves try to dig a tunnel to get it.
“Like something out of a Hollywood movie,” a press release from KFC trumpeted at the time.
KFC may very well be following the basic instructions of the recipe encased in the vault. But the fanfare around its founder’s instructions is despite his disapproval of the new owners of the chain after he sold his stake in the company in 1964. In his book, for example, Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas, a friend of Sanders, recounts how the colonel was annoyed because they came up with a simpler way to drain grease off the chicken by dumping it onto wire racks, rather than ladling the grease off by hand. Sanders apparently hated the new system because it bruised the chicken.
According to the book, Sanders was afraid the new owners would ruin the chicken because he said they “didn’t know a drumstick from a pig’s ear.”
A KFC spokesman, Rick Maynard, said the issue over the grease was indicative of Sanders’ hands-on approach even after selling the business. Maynard said the important parts of the recipe are the seasoning, using fresh chicken on the bone, hand breading according to standards and frying under pressure. As for the chain’s recently introduced boneless Original Recipe chicken, he said it uses the recipe’s seasoning.
The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) and PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE:PEP), the nation’s No. 1 and 2 soda makers, respectively, also are known for touting the roots of their recipes.
In the book Secret Formula, which was published in 1994 and drew from interviews with former executives and access to The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO)’s corporate archives, reporter Frederick Allen noted that multiple changes were made to the formula over the years. For instance, Allen noted that the soda once contained trace amounts of cocaine as a result of the coca leaves in the ingredients, as well as four times the amount of caffeine.
In an emailed statement, Coca-Cola said its secret formula has remained the same since it was invented in 1886 and that cocaine has “never been an added ingredient” in its soda.
It’s a line that’s familiar to Terry Parham, a retired special agent for the Drug Enforcement Agency. After the agency opened its museum in Arlington, Va., in the late 1990s, Parham, who was working in the press office at the time, recalled in a recent interview with The Associated Press that a Coca-Cola representative called to complain about an exhibit that noted the soda once contained cocaine. The exhibit stayed and Parham said the DEA didn’t hear back from the company.
PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE:PEP) also celebrates its origins and in the past two years held its annual shareholders meeting in New Bern, N.C., where Caleb Bradham is said to have created the company’s flagship soda in the late 1890s. But the formula for Pepsi was changed to make it sweeter in 1931 by the company’s new owner, who didn’t like the taste.
