This entry was posted on
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 at
12:17 pm and is filed
under Consume!.

I had one of those odd karmic moments this morning; it occurred to me for the nth time that in these glorious days of lost laptops and missing memory sticks, many items are left/discovered on trains, and perhaps when travelling to London on Waterloo-terminating trains, I shouldn’t be making a beeline straight for the Underground, but instead taking the time to have a quick stroll through the train, just to see if there’s anything interesting that’s been left behind.

After all, a habit* I picked up from my nightclub days has me seeing (and keeping!) more spare change than all of my kids combined; why not extend this into keeping a sharp eye out for lost and abandoned data on terminating trains?

[*Nightclubs are busy and dark, people are usually drunk, and they drop money everywhere. I don’t walk everywhere with my head down, but I do generally scan the area 5-6 steps ahead of me, and over time I’m become aware of typical ‘hot zones’ where people are more likely to shed cash. And I hate to brag, but the abilities I’ve inherited from my hunting and gathering ancestors include something approaching super-vision. Browsing through a mostly empty 10-12 carriage train should be a doddle, and I expect to meet the clean-up crew moving in the opposite direction about halfway through the job most days anyway.]

So this morning I tried it with a test scan through maybe half a dozen carriages and walked away with…. a free copy of The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Scum and The Times.

Oh well.

So, off to the Underground I went, a little disheartened and doubtful about my plan, until I saw what some twit had thrown on the litter pile at the top of the escalators; comprehensive (and current) product marketing documents for Yum!-owned fast food chain KFC (aka Kentucky Fried Chicken).

Hardly top-secret government data proving that David Icke was right about the Windsor Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Xikfagorrrr family being shape-shifting lizards after all, but the documents do contain the roll-out and marketing plans for several recent and current products/campaigns, including details such as sales forecasts, profit margins and marketing coverage.

(It probably won’t surprise you that KFC bases most of its TV expenditure on the ‘lifeboat’ principle; women and children first! Instead of wasting their breath on primitive ‘pester power’, children are now expected to express their ‘concern’ about poor old Mum and all that cooking and washing up she’s normally expected to do. The perfect solution is, of course, the Big Night In bucket of chicken. That’s not to say that KFC don’t have plans for the ‘sad loner eating at a trough’ market; the Boneless Banquet for One offers ample comfort to recently-divorced men living in bedsits, and the taste sensation of the Flavour Station offers a far safer type of variety than the one they were seeking when the now-former missus caught on to their ‘working late’ shenanigans.)

Now, before you get too excited, I need to point out that the documents do not contain details of the ‘famously’ ‘secret’ “multi-million dollar recipe” of 11 herbs and spices (which is, according to the book Big Secrets, a mix of “salt, pepper and MSG” and… erm, that’s about it).

But they do provide insight into the following new product, currently being tested in Scotland prior to its national launch in early 2009; KFC Paninis (or, as they are referred to throughout the main document; KFC Panini’s).

[MINI-UPDATE – I have just been informed that ‘panino’ is the name of this type of sandwich, and that and ‘panini’ is the plural of ‘panino’; therefore my mindless repeat of paninis is just as unforgivable as the sin of panini’s. I throw myself at the mercy of the International Court of Pedantry.]

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KFC Paninis: their saucy secrets revealed!

As you can see from this b3ta chatter and this scan of KFC’s marketing material, the KFC Panini is branded as a “luxurious” item (a “gourmet sandwich” with a “classic Italian taste”) and there are two varieties; the Italian Chicken Panini and the Spicy Chicken Panini.

As you might expect from a chain with strict adherence to the formula of 11 herbs and spices salt, pepper and MSG for their chicken, the secret is in the sauce…. and here, exclusively on Bloggerheads, I am going to reveal the strict preparation guidelines for the sauces for both of these gourmet sandwiches:

Italian Chicken Panini

Below is a scan showing the preparation guidelines for the sauce in this “gourmet sandwich” with a “classic Italian taste”:

Spicy Chicken Panini

Below is a scan showing the preparation guidelines for the sauce in this “gourmet sandwich” with a “classic Italian taste”:

(There is probably a reason why these details are secret, so don’t tell too many people, please.)