FOOD BLOW
Full list of 13 KFC branches suddenly closed for good leaving fast food lovers crying ‘it’s a shame’
Plus the closest alternative if your branch is affected
A STRING of 13 KFC branches are set to permanently close - leaving fast food fanatics heartbroken.
Loyal customers have been crying "it's a shame" as yet another of the restaurants announces it will shut up shop.
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A KFC in Weymouth, Dorset is among more than a dozen that have suddenly closed after its franchise holder entered administration.
The branch of the fast food chain in St Mary Street in the town centre has abruptly shut after franchise holder Caskade entered administration.
Further locations in Maidstone, Crayford and Bournemouth are among those affected.
Among 53 KFC outlets owned by Caskade, administrator Begbies Traynor said 40 of these restaurants have been bought by another franchise, Adil Group.
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It means they will continue to stay in business under new ownership.
But 13 locations were not saved as part of the rescue deal
Begbies Traynor said: “We can confirm the successful sale of 40 branches previously operated by a single KFC franchisee to Adil Group."
It added: “The sale to the new owners is a positive outcome for the majority of branches and employees within the portfolio.
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"Adil Group has been a successful KFC franchisee for more than 20 years, currently operates 73 KFC restaurants across the UK, and will provide the former Caskade KFC branches with a sound financial footing for the future.”
Administration is when all control of a company is passed to an appointed to a licensed insolvency practitioner.
Britain's retail apocalypse: why your favourite stores KEEP closing down
It doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the business though.
All or parts of the business could still be sold if an interested buyer is found - as is the case here.
Administrators will try to help a company find ways to repay debts or solve its cashflow problems.
The process can last anywhere from a few weeks to up to a year or more.
But if the administration process can't rescue the company or find a new owner, this can lead to liquidation.
The full list of KFC stores set to close are below - plus the nearest alternative location.
KFC closures
- Fleet Street (nearest KFC – Farringdon Road, 10 min walk)
- St Mary Street (nearest KFC – Queen Street, 10 min walk)
- Maidstone The Mall (nearest KFC – Week Street, 8 min walk)
- Uckfield (nearest KFC – Haywards Heath, 25 min drive)
- New Milton – Station Road (nearest KFC – Christchurch, Lyndhurst Road, 10 min drive)
- Christchurch- Barrack Road (nearest KFC – Christchurch, Lyndhurst Road, 8 min drive)
- Leatherhead – Church Street (nearest KFC – Cobham Services, 10 min drive)
- Downham – Bromley Road (nearest KFC – Catford, 8 min drive)
- Boscombe – Christchurch Road (nearest KFC – Bournemouth Lansdowne, 30 min walk)
- Crayford Way (nearest KFC – Bexleyheath, 6 min drive)
- Westover Road – Bournemouth (nearest KFC – Bournemouth, The Triangle, 10 min walk)
- Dover, Market Square (nearest KFC – Honey Wood Retail Park, 10 min drive)
- Hove – Blatchington Road (nearest KFC – Brighton Western Road, 8 min drive)
KFC, which is owned by Yum! Brands, the company behind Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.
It has over 1,000 restaurants in the UK and some are franchises.
In a franchise model, a business sells a licence to a third-party (franchisee) to trade under the brand name.
Franchises are separate legal entities, which means their owners have freedom to do things like set pay and conditions for their employees.
A spokesperson for KFC UK & Ireland previously told the Sun: “With its track record and ambitions for sustainable growth, we believe existing KFC franchisee Adil Group is the right long-term partner to take on Caskade’s KFC business.
"We look forward to continue working with Adil Group to serve up the nation’s favourite fried chicken and unlock value for our people and the communities we operate in.”
Last year KFC bought existing outlets owned and operated by the EG Group - a franchisee and sister company of supermarket Asda.
The fast food chain said it would take over the EG Group's 218 sites across the UK and Ireland, which employ around 7,800 people.
It comes as another major fast-food chain has announced it will be shutting down one of its branches in a "shocking" move.
The fast-food giant with 2,000 sites is set to close its "friendly" store much to the fans' dismay.
Subway has confirmed it will pull down the shutters on its Queen street branch in Ipswich.
The firm cited the end of the lease as the reason for the fast-food branch to seize operations.
The exact date of the store's closure isn't clear but the lease is said to expire in November.
A spokesperson for the company said that the franchise is in the process of looking into relocation options.
The address of the store at 26-28 Queen Street has already been put on the market.
Fans have reacted to the news and flocked online to express their dismay at the sudden closure.
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One person wrote: "Too bad, the staff are lovely at this location."
Another one added: "This is so sad."
Why are retailers closing shops?
EMPTY shops have become an eyesore on many British high streets and are often symbolic of a town centre’s decline.
The Sun's business editor Ashley Armstrong explains why so many retailers are shutting their doors.
In many cases, retailers are shutting stores because they are no longer the money-makers they once were because of the rise of online shopping.
Falling store sales and rising staff costs have made it even more expensive for shops to stay open. In some cases, retailers are shutting a store and reopening a new shop at the other end of a high street to reflect how a town has changed.
The problem is that when a big shop closes, footfall falls across the local high street, which puts more shops at risk of closing.
Retail parks are increasingly popular with shoppers, who want to be able to get easy, free parking at a time when local councils have hiked parking charges in towns.
Many retailers including Next and Marks & Spencer have been shutting stores on the high street and taking bigger stores in better-performing retail parks instead.
Boss Stuart Machin recently said that when it relocated a tired store in Chesterfield to a new big store in a retail park half a mile away, its sales in the area rose by 103 per cent.
In some cases, stores have been shut when a retailer goes bust, as in the case of Wilko, Debenhams Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Paperchase to name a few.
What’s increasingly common is when a chain goes bust a rival retailer or private equity firm snaps up the intellectual property rights so they can own the brand and sell it online.
They may go on to open a handful of stores if there is customer demand, but there are rarely ever as many stores or in the same places.
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