KFC to eliminate trans fats
All US franchises will switch to soybean oil by April of next year
KFC Corp., the home of Colonel Sanders' Kentucky fried chicken, will start using oil without harmful trans fatty acids in the United States after a lawsuit and health experts claimed its food raises the risk of heart disease.
KFC's 5,500 restaurants in the United States will switch to low linolenic soybean oil by April, the Yum Brands Inc. unit said yesterday. New York, Chicago, and Atlanta KFC restaurants have already made the change, KFC president Gregg Dedrick said.
A Maryland doctor sued the company in June, seeking $74,000 for each customer who wasn't warned about trans fats. KFC is following Wendy's International Inc., the first national chain to stop cooking with the harmful fats. McDonald's Corp. and Walt Disney Co. also have reduced the use of trans fats.
"Eventually we are going to have trans fats out of all foods," said Dennis Lombardi, executive vice president of food service strategies at WD Partners in Columbus, Ohio. "KFC's announcement is one more step down a path. In three or four years, it will be gone, maybe sooner."
The KFC restaurants are abandoning vegetable shortening after two years of testing alternative cooking oils. Shortening is made by adding hydrogen to vegetable oil, turning it into a solid. The process creates trans fats, which are linked to heart disease.
KFC accounted for about 15 percent of Louisville, Ky.- based Yum's US operating profit, chief executive David Novak said in 2004. Yum's sales have increased every year since 2001, and its profits have climbed since 2000.
This month Yum said third-quarter profit rose 12 percent to $230 million. The company also operates Taco Bell and Pizza Hut restaurants.
