"Is there a problem? Aren't we just selling fried chicken?"
Upon hearing Carter's exclamation, everyone gathered around. Seeing Carter's astonished expression, it was Anna who first stepped forward to address the topic. She couldn't understand why her brother was so surprised to see a fried chicken menu in a fried chicken restaurant.
Little did she know.
The Kentucky Fried Chicken that Carter was familiar with consisted of various fast-food items such as chicken wings, hamburgers, and even pies. And at this moment, Carter, looking at a menu that had no burgers, no fries, only a combo of soda and fried chicken, felt his scalp tingling.
In that instant, he seemed to understand why the first question from the customer service when he joined was whether he had a restaurant. Looking back, it was clear they had made their implications obvious.
In this day and age, those who joined Kentucky Fried Chicken usually had an already established restaurant and were looking to expand their offerings with fried chicken. But here he was.
"Forget it, just make me a piece of fried chicken."
Regretting why he hadn't come to check sooner, Carter felt a mix of frustration and disappointment as he ordered fried chicken. Suddenly, he thought of all the events since deciding to invest in this restaurant.
In hindsight, Carter realized this issue was easy to spot. First was the name, Kentucky Fried Chicken. They were clearly telling you they only sold fried chicken. It wasn't like McDonald's, a relatively complete fast-food restaurant. Just like those Korean fried chicken shops in the future, you shouldn't expect much more than fried chicken.
Secondly, looking at the menu. At this moment, the menu at Kentucky Fried Chicken was extremely simple, just called Kentucky Fried Chicken. When Joey brought a piece of fried chicken to him, Carter took a bite. It tasted exactly like what he had eaten on the road before. Similar to the future's "finger-licking good," but with a bit more salt. Other than that, there were no spicy wings, no New Orleans wings, nothing else!
With just this, Carter understood why this restaurant always seemed to be struggling. Even if the gas station next door was bustling, the restaurant would find it difficult to expand with such limited offerings.
"Carter, what's wrong?"
Seeing Carter gnawing at the chicken with gritted teeth, Anna pulled a chair next to him, looking puzzled.
"I realized I did something stupid. Let's not dwell on that. This restaurant's menu is too limited, we need to expand."
It was all about saving money!
Sighing deeply, Carter felt that cheap things indeed had no good goods, and good goods weren't cheap!
Initially, when Carter was choosing a restaurant, he did consider McDonald's, but now McDonald's was everywhere in America, and the franchise threshold was much higher than Kentucky Fried Chicken's. Even the choice of restaurant manager had to be approved by McDonald's headquarters, and they had to undergo training at Hamburger University, among other criteria.
Comparing the two, Carter opted for Kentucky Fried Chicken for its convenience and cost-effectiveness. But now he had dug himself a hole.
"You mean we should also sell hamburgers, fries, and other items like McDonald's?"
"Yes! These are necessary. A single fried chicken menu simply won't satisfy the drivers' dining needs. We must start making hamburgers. I'll find a bread supplier later. Chicken is easy, we have plenty of chickens in Georgia. Or maybe just put the fried chicken in a bun, add some lettuce, cheese, and other toppings."
After taking the last bite of fried chicken and casually tossing a chicken bone onto the plate, Carter firmly spoke. Following the thought of introducing burger items, Carter suddenly realized that the problem might not be as difficult to solve as he had imagined.
Aside from how to develop and blend flavors, just thinking from the supply angle, Carter realized he had a bit of an advantage.
The Southern states had always been agricultural states in America. Just as Carter had said, we have no shortage of chickens in Georgia. Even beef shouldn't be a problem. Texas had the largest beef cattle farming scale in the United States.
"Oh, and about beef burgers. Those Angus beef burgers with pickles, cheese, and other toppings. We should also consider that direction. Let's not focus too much on chicken. Of course, if we can use chicken, that would be best!"
"That, Mr. Blake..."
As soon as Carter finished speaking, Chris raised his hand.
"Just call me Carter. What's your suggestion, Chris? And everyone else, feel free to give your ideas. Let's brainstorm together. If the products sell well, the restaurant succeeds, and in the future, you can use this model to open your own restaurant."
Thinking about his unique advantage in the supply chain, Carter's mindset calmed down a bit, and he waved his hand, indicating everyone to sit down and discuss.
Since things had reached this point, making a mistake and being unable to turn back, Carter didn't want to wallow in regret. Instead, he wanted to quickly figure out how to remedy the situation.
"Alright, Carter. I want to say that if the business is good and the restaurant grows in scale, it might be more cost-effective to choose beef over chicken. Because when making burgers, chicken breast is the only suitable meat, or you have to completely grind it and form it into patties. But if you want to extract meat from different parts of the chicken, the process becomes much more complex. And with limited meat yield per chicken, satisfying a large demand would either require a dedicated mechanized slaughterhouse or a large number of workers."
"I think I understand what you mean. You're saying that if we want to expand and compete with McDonald's, for example, I should start with beef patties instead of chicken. This will make it easier to establish a standardized concept for our burgers and make customers remember our burger specialties. Is that what you mean?"
Carter blinked, pondering Chris's suggestion. In theory, beef in America wasn't that expensive, and the quality was good. If you thought like a Chinese person, beef was definitely a better choice! After all, it was cheaper, and the quality was good. But after just suffering a loss due to his previous impressions, Carter dared not think like that anymore.
Instead, he started to think from the current practical situation. Georgia produces chicken! Texas produces beef! From the procurement perspective, it was all good, no problem. But transporting Texas beef to Georgia would inevitably incur additional transportation costs.
So when making suggestions, Carter first mentioned chicken patties. But now that he thought about Chris's words carefully, they did make sense.
Of course, this was not to say how things would be in the future when the scale grew. Just now, Carter mentioned it casually, mostly to praise Chris. In reality, if now they bought Georgia chickens and then incurred the cost of hiring people to slaughter the chickens, it might actually be more expensive than the transportation cost of beef!
Considering America's identity as a beef-eating nation, using beef patties might have a higher market acceptance.
"Yeah! I was just looking at books about McDonald's, Burger King, and other fast-food restaurants. I also thought our product range was too limited. So I wanted to see how they did it, and then you came. So, I just mentioned it casually."