- KFC China is including chicken feet and necks in its new "super abundant bucket".
- The CEO of Yum China said rising oil prices were behind the change rather than consumer demand.
- The company said it had also brought back the buffet option at Pizza Hut restaurants.
KFC has started selling chicken feet in China in an attempt to deal with soaring costs, its CEO has said.
Yum China, which owns KFC as well as the Pizza Hut and Taco Bells chains, told investors on an earnings call last week that chicken feet had finally made it onto the menu to combat rising energy prices.
Joey Wat, the company's CEO, told CNN Business Yum was trying to make maximum use of materials to cut costs.
"I can report back that for this year, for 2022, we are finally selling chicken feet," she said.
Chicken feet are a delicacy in China, but it was rising costs that prompted the move rather than consumer demand.
"Prices of commodities such as cooking oil and beef as well as utilities have risen significantly this year," Wat said on the July 29 call.
"On the labor side, we expect labor inflation to soften, given different the downward economic pressure. However, the increased mix in delivery sales will likely increase rider costs."
Wat said KFC China had launched the "super abundant chicken bucket," which included several parts of the chicken, and brought back the buffet option at Pizza Huts.
She said: "This bucket features chicken feet, chicken wing tips, necks and other parts traditionally favored by Chinese people. For some of the analysts who asked me before when would we start to sell chicken feet, we are officially selling chicken feet right now after 35 years."
"We try to absorb this commodity price increase, with ... full utilization of the chicken," Wat told CNN, saying the company would use everything "except the feather, I guess."
Wat told investors that the moves were designed to avoid having to lay off any of its 450,000 employees in China after reporting a 16% decline in revenues year-on-year.