What it’s like working as a cook for the world’s biggest fried chicken chain. 

Everybody loves fried chicken. OK, not everybody, but a significant chunk of the New Zealand population does. To many of us, fried chicken is a comfort food. To others, it’s part of their ethnicity’s food culture, and to some, it is simply a tasty treat. When lots of us think about fried chicken, our minds naturally drift towards KFC; after all, the brand has become synonymous with fried chicken in the English-speaking world. It’s the world’s biggest fried chicken fast food chain, with almost 27,000 locations doing $31.3b in sales in 2021 alone.

Here in New Zealand, we have 114 KFCs spanning Kaitaia to Invercargill and everywhere in between. The sight of Colonel Sanders’ mug and the KFC bucket are easily recognisable to plenty of us, but how many people know what goes on behind that bucket? I work as a cook at KFC, so I can answer that question. 

As well as working at KFC I am still in high school – with all the sports training, homework and assignments that come with it. Typically I work late nights since I’m at school during the day. When I wake up on a workday I always have a sense of despair about how long and tiring my day will be – I’m going to be out from 8:30am – 11:30pm.

Getting home so late from work means I can’t do my homework until almost midnight, forcing me to stay up well past a reasonable school-night bedtime (not that I go to bed early usually anyway, but at least it’s my choice when I’m not working). Not only does this make me extremely tired at school the next day, but I am often stressed out trying to balance paid and school work.

As a cook, stress seeps into my day when the KFC store I work at is understaffed. Frequently my workplace does not have enough people to allocate to each station – ordering, packing, sending out food and cooking. Cooking itself is split into two sections, breading (aka coating the chicken) and frying/cooking. Sometimes we’re forced to work more than one station at a time when we’re short staffed.

Working more than one role at once is really rough. Doing both cooking stations when we’re understaffed means it’s really difficult to get people’s orders out, particularly keeping the “chicken warmer” (sounds gross, and it is) stocked. Particularly when we’re understaffed and/or busy, I must cook the chicken well in advance to beat the rush. The chicken sometimes sits in the warmer for up to one-and-a-half hours depending on what piece it is.

When I’m at work, nothing great ever happens that gets me excited, although there are plenty of lows. As already mentioned, working alone in the kitchen when it’s busy is really difficult, and sometimes we even run out of chicken! But the worst thing about working at KFC is the cleanup.

Cleaning the kitchen includes scrubbing, washing and rinsing down work surfaces, filtering flour and draining the vats of oil used to deep fry the chicken. The latter is very difficult and has given me several bad oil burns. To do it best requires a helping hand, so it is especially tough when we are understaffed.

Surely at least as a teenager I would be happy to get free fried chicken? Surprisingly, the answer to that question is no. Before I started working at KFC I was excited to get an endless supply of deep fried depravity. But now I have come to think that our food is just gross. Being made with that much oil seems off-putting. Particularly since I am the one cooking the chicken, so I see the oil dripping off.

Working at KFC has put me off our food, but I still break that rule sometimes. I’d never buy KFC anymore – I do eat it at work when I’m really hungry, but that’s it. Also, I think it’s bad that it’s company policy to throw out uneaten food at the end of the day. But fortunately my co-workers, who are yet to be put off by the grease, take the spare food home instead of feeding it to the rats.

The Spinoff asked me “What’s good about working at KFC?” That’s a dumb question – there is nothing good from my experience. To get a bit philosophical on you, I think working in fast food should be a last choice for everyone. But I acknowledge that to get by financially, some people must work at places like KFC. I’ve found that a lot of fast food staff are young people, like myself, who struggle to get better jobs. I want to quit KFC, but I have to pay the bills somehow, so for the time being I’ll stay put. Many more long 8:30am to 11:30pm days of school, followed by cooking chicken, await me.

– As told to Tommy de Silva

The small chocolate company facing scrutiny over allegedly using commercially produced lollies to make its upmarket products has released a statement admitting the truth. Stewart Sowman-Lund reports.

The chocolate company accused of misleading customers with its “handcrafted” claims has admitted altering a commercially mass produced “bulk product” to make some of its products.

The Spinoff reported last week that Potter Brothers, a small company in Levin, had been accused by customers of recoating what appeared to be regular pineapple lumps, such as those made by Pascall or Rainbow Confectionery, and then labelling them as “handmade” or “handcrafted”.

The claims all stemmed from a video originally shared to Instagram back in 2020 by former Great Kiwi Bake Off finalist Courtnay Adele. At the time, her personal investigation never made it beyond her own social media. But since resharing her claims to TikTok last week, she’s received well over a million views across three videos.

There had been radio silence from the company since the claims recirculated last week. Potter Brothers had updated its website to remove references to being “handmade”, but ignored repeated approaches from The Spinoff and other media outlets, instead posting to Facebook before the weekend with a promise to address the concerns in the near future. 

But now, in a written statement, Potter Brothers co-founded Joe Potter has confirmed that his company, launched over five years ago “in our Wainuiomata flat”, had been altering products made commercially by other companies.

It all started with the original launch of the company back in 2017, he said. “At that time, and in the period immediately following, one of our processes involved hand-coating a bulk product which is only commercially available to make our Pineapple Chews, however 50% of our other fillings were made fully in house,” Potter said.

“Today, we have 16 products in our range and 80% of the fillings are made by us, fully inhouse.

“As our business has grown, thanks to the support of our customers, we have been able to invest more in our operation, skills and capability. We now make core ingredients, like pineapple nougat, ourselves, at our factory in Levin, using a hands-on process.”

Consumer NZ told The Spinoff last week that altering a mass-produced product by hand was likely a breach of New Zealand’s fair trading laws. “Any advertising and marketing material on food packages must comply with the Fair Trading Act and the Food Act. If something is labelled as ‘handmade’ it must be made by hand,” a spokesperson said. 

According to Potter, the company started to change the words “handmade” to “small batch” on its products’ packaging about a year ago. This was, said Potter, a “better representation” of the products. However, this had not been reflected on the website and bags with the handmade label were still recently available in stores.

“When we started, we were young, excitable and naïve, and didn’t consider how the use of some words in our content may not be appropriate,” Potter said.

“This was not intentional and these are learnings that have been taken to heart in recent times.”

Potter added: “Updating our website to reflect this personal and professional growth has been an ongoing, long-term project, but we acknowledge that there has been a particular focus on this in the past week.”

A video response in-line with their statement was also posted to Facebook overnight.

Courtnay Adele, whose videos first put the spotlight on Potter Brothers, told The Spinoff today she was pleased that after two years it had finally been confirmed the company was using mass produced lollies. “I’m glad to hear they are starting to make more products in house and I hope it goes well for them,” she said.

It’s believed that Potter Brothers had been using products sold by the Rainbow Confectionery company as the basis for its Pineapple Chews and at least one other product, chocolate covered jellies. However, Rainbow Confectionery’s general manager refused to comment when approached by The Spinoff last week.

Pascall, the producers of the most widely recognisable pineapple lumps, confirmed to The Spinoff it has no commercial relationship with Potter Brothers – but a spokesperson told 1News the confectionery brand was following the story with interest.

Since The Spinoff’s first report, there have been at least three complaints lodged about Potter Brothers with the Commerce Commission. So far, the watchdog has not committed to an investigation into the company but said it would be assessing the complaints to determine whether a law breach had been committed. 

“Our assessment looks at the nature of allegations and whether they potentially raise a concern under the Fair Trading Act,” spokesperson Vanessa Horne said. “When considering whether to open an investigation, we consider the available information for relevance to the Commission’s responsibilities and current work programme, our enforcement criteria, and priority areas for new enforcement work. 

“We receive thousands of enquiries every year and, while we assess everything that we receive, we are unable to investigate everything.”

Potter Brothers has 14 employees and the company was “fully committed” to producing quality products.

While the chocolate company has released a statement to the media, it continues to reject The Spinoff’s requests for an interview.