KFC Japan begins providing food from its menu to Children’s Cafeterias

Kentucky Fried Chicken Japan Ltd. (subsidiary of KFC Holdings Japan Ltd.) has announced it will start providing food from its menu to food bank in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, from November 2019. It will give away ‘original chicken’ and ‘boneless chicken’, that are precooked at KFC stores. The food bank will then provide them to ‘Kodomo Shokudo’ (meaning Children’s Cafeteria) within Yokohama city, which provides complimentary meals for children. KFC is the first nationwide business from the food industry in Japan to provide cooked food to Children Cafeterias.

Currently, there are over 3,700 Children’s Cafeterias in Japan. They are mainly operated by the locals, providing meals for children, their parents and the people in the community without charge or at low cost. They offer locals a place to connect with the community, as well as to provide nutritious food for children in poverty and who suffer from malnutrition. The number of Children’s Cafeterias is rapidly growing in Japan because of its important role as a community space.

This project materialized after KFC and a nonprofit organization ‘Food Bank Yokohama’ built a scheme to secure the safety of sharing precooked food. KFC will freeze and store left over food at stores and provide them to Food Bank Yokohama when the NPO requests for provision. Food Bank Yokohama will then deliver them to Children’s Cafeterias within Yokohama city. Each cafeteria will then defrost and cook the food as needed (bones will be removed from original chicken for safety) at their responsibility. Because each of the organization checks and observes the safety criteria at each phase, every meal will be provided safely.

KFC Japan has been making efforts to approach the Sustainability Development Goals from various aspects. It has been working especially in aspects of: No Poverty; Zero Hunger; Good Health and Well-being; Quality Education; Gender Equality; Decent work and Economic Growth; Reduced Inequalities; Responsible Consumption and Production; Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions; and Partnership for The Goals. Providing food for Children’s Cafeterias is one of its challenge to create a healthy, affluent society and to support a hearty growth of children. The company also plans to contrive a new menu for Children’s Cafeterias in the future.

Other KFC Holdings such as KFC Australia, US, Ireland and UK are already tackling hunger issues for many years. The KFC group aims to be the global restaurant leader in surplus food donations. Like so, KFC Japan hopes to commit to building a concrete model for sharing surplus food in Japan, which could be shared with other businesses and municipalities.