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Chicken, pizza, and ribs are some of the items that can be found on the menu at Chicken Delight, which is a restaurant franchise that offers dine-in, take-out, and delivery service. The majority of the chain’s locations are located inside Winnipeg and the surrounding province of Manitoba.
Even though there are six Chicken Delight restaurants operating in the New York metropolitan region as of the year 2019, none of these are mentioned on the list of franchise locations that can be seen on the corporate website.
Chicken Delight History
The current Chicken Delight franchise is a branch of a much larger chain. Founded in 1952 in Illinois, the business expanded to over 1,000 stores by the 1960s. Consolidated Foods purchased it in 1964. During the 1960s, the jingle “Don’t cook tonight, call Chicken Delight” was heavily advertised on American radio and television, highlighting their delivery and take-out services.
The chain’s mascot in the late 1950s and early 1960s was a chicken wearing a chef’s hat and holding a plate of biscuits. Chicken Delight was a struggling operation in the United States by the late 1960s. While emerging chains such as McDonald’s ensured that all outlets produced a product that matched the franchisor’s high requirements, Chicken Delight locations had lax quality control.
As a result, the company was fighting consumers who, after having a terrible experience in one location, generalized it to the entire chain and encouraged their friends to avoid it. At the same time, fast-growing competitor Kentucky Fried Chicken was putting pressure on Chicken Delight (KFC). Despite the fact that Chicken Delight and KFC were created the same year, and that Chicken Delight had initially expanded significantly faster, KFC was beginning to enter and develop popularity in many markets.
The battle grew more fierce in 1972 when KFC introduced “Extra-Crispy” chicken to their menu, which tasted and felt comparable to Chicken Delight’s offering. Legal efforts in the early 1970s resulted in a significant drop in the Chicken Delight business. Otto Koch, the successful proprietor of Chicken Delight Canada Ltd., purchased the remainder of the American Chicken Delight company in 1979.
Chicken Delight Divorce
When Chicken Delight was first established, franchisees normally collected revenue in one of two ways. One option was to collect 4% to 8% of gross sales, as is now customary. The other option was for the franchisor to purchase all of their franchisees’ equipment and packaging.
Chicken Delight franchisees pay a little extra for each paper cup, paper plate, chicken-coating mix, and so on in the latter system, providing the franchisor with income for corporate operations, promotion, and profit. Some franchisees (and their legal representatives) claimed the arrangement violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which states that the franchisor must not sell things for more than their fair market worth.
A case was launched on behalf of 94 franchisees in the 1960s, and the plaintiffs obtained a precedent-setting judgment from the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1971, which terminated the franchise contract for all locations and granted the plaintiffs damages. (Siegel v. Chicken Delight, 448 F.2d 43 (9th Cor. 1971); recent decisions such as Queen City Pizza v. Domino’s Pizza, 124 F.3d 430 (1997).)
Consolidated Foods (now Sara Lee Corporation), the then-owner of Chicken Delight, abandoned the business in the United States, leaving all of its former franchisees to fend for themselves. Some of the old US stores still exist today, with names similar to the originals, such as “Chicken Tonight.”
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