If there’s one thing you expect to be there when you enter a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, it’s fried chicken.
But, alas, if you were hankering for some finger-licking chicken in the UK these past few days, you may have been prevented from indulging in the Colonel’s special recipes. KFC closed over 600 of its 900 locations in the UK after running out of chicken, The Guardian reported today.
The chicken chain recently changed its delivery contracts from Bidvest to DHL, according to the BBC, which blamed “operational issues” for the logistical cluck-up. “The chicken crossed the road, just not to our restaurants,” KFC said on Twitter.
The chain hasn’t said when it will get back to fowl capacity, but it has posted a list of the stores still able to sell you a bucket of fried chicken in Britain. (A quick glance over the company’s menu reveals that there’s literally nothing you can order without chicken in it, other than a few desserts and some drinks.)
“Bidvest are specialists—a food distribution firm with years of experience. KFC’s bird-brained decision has caused untold misery to customers, to Bidvest workers and restaurant staff who are not being paid,” Mick Rix, the national officer of the British trade union GMB said in a statement. “Now they’ve been left with egg on their face.”
Now would be a prime time for Nando’s, the UK’s more upscale chicken-focused fast-food chain, to capitalize. So far, it’s been silent on Twitter, but it may only be a matter of time until the chickens come home to roost.