KFC Australia will trial home delivery next month, as the chicken frying giant tries to keep pace with the rapidly changing fast food market.
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Direct competitor Red Rooster has been offering home delivery for 2½ years and says the move is behind much of the growth that has its parent company set for a $250 million stockmarket float.
And online food delivery aggregators such as MenuLog and UberEATS – which provide a shared order platform and their own drivers – have made it cheaper and easier for smaller restaurants to deliver their food to customers.
KFC Australia's managing director Nikki Lawson said a home delivery trial would start out of eight of the chain's outlets within the next three weeks.
Foodora – an aggregator which runs a delivery network using bicycles, motorbikes and cars – will deliver the orders.
"We'll be going fairly carefully," Mrs Lawson said. "What you don't want to do is have a fabulous delivery experience and end up with a really awful consumer experience for everyone else."
Customer demand, the effect on service for in-store customers, and being able to deliver a quality product would determine whether home delivery would be rolled out Australia-wide, Mrs Lawson said.
“It’s the next logical step on convenience.” she said. “As soon as we see a viable business case we’ll roll it out a little more aggressively.”
She said KFC’s own “click and collect” online order system could be adapted to home deliveries, but there were no plans to use its own drivers.