KFC announced it will lean harder into boneless chicken because the company just figured out some customers don't want to work for their meal. Revolutionary stuff. The chain is losing market share to legacy giants and upstarts, which means Popeyes keeps beating them and someone named Dave opened a food truck.
The technical setup here is f*cking irrelevant. Boneless chicken is chicken nuggets for adults who need a rebrand. KFC could call them Premium Hand-Crafted Bone-Free Protein Experiences and charge three dollars more. They won't. They'll add a new drink instead because nothing says we're innovating like Mountain Dew with different food coloring.
The growing global popularity of chicken has created more competition. Translation: people figured out chicken costs less than beef and KFC got comfortable. Now Chick-fil-A prints money six days a week and Raising Cane's built an empire on four menu items. KFC has forty items and nobody can name six of them.
Retail traders will read this headline and think it's a turnaround play. They'll check the chart. They'll see some support at a level that doesn't matter. They'll buy calls expiring Friday because boneless chicken sounds like forward guidance. It's not. It's a restaurant admitting it needs to sell food people actually want to eat.
The new drinks will be Pepsi products with different syrups. The boneless chicken will be the same chicken they've been serving since 1952 but without the part that makes you feel like you accomplished something. KFC will regain zero market share. Popeyes will keep winning. The stock will move based on interest rates and nothing else.
Colonel Sanders died in 1980 and they've been Weekend at Bernie's-ing his image ever since to sell fried chicken that tastes like the box it came in.
Photo by Fauzan Azizi on Unsplash
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