• KFC South Pacific’s new Managing Director Richard Wallis started his new role just as the pandemic hit in Australia.
• Wallis described how Aussie food buying habits have changed during the pandemic, with less snacking and more family meals.
• He also told Business Insider Australia that the chain plans on opening more drive-through-only stores, like the one it has in Newcastle.
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

While each Aussie state and territory is at different stages of coronavirus restrictions, customers are still getting KFC as a treat, according to KFC South Pacific’s Managing Director and General Manager, Richard Wallis.

“The business is having probably what we’d say is a record year,” Wallis told Business Insider Australia.

He described, however, that the buying behaviour among Aussies has changed during the pandemic.

“People are not going out as frequently for snacking,” he said. “They’d maybe stick to their main meals, but then they’ll often buy group meals. And so it’s more about family occasions and having a treat at home.”

Wallis entered the new MD position during the onset of the pandemic in Australia but he’s not entirely new to the KFC brand. In fact, October 2020 marks 25 years since he started at Pizza Hut, the parent company of which is Yum! Brands. And Yum! Brands also operates KFC.

Starting out as a delivery driver, Wallis rose up the ranks in various roles across Pizza Hut and KFC in Australia before heading up the Canadian then Singaporean arms of the business.

He returned to Australia this year – adding that he met the KFC team once in January before starting – and has been working remotely for the past six months.

When the pandemic first hit, the fast-food business proactively shut its seating areas before the official government requirements. It also ramped up its digital technology, delivery and click-and-collect options, which it already had prior to COVID.

“I think we’re really lucky we’ve got drive-throughs because drive-throughs proved to be a very safe way of delivering product,” Wallis said.

Learning from drive-throughs

In 2019, KFC opened its first drive-through only store in Newcastle, well before the pandemic began.

“It’s funny how these things end up playing out,” Wallis said, highlighting how ideal it was during this situation because it’s contactless – you just order your food through the app then pick up the food.

KFC has a few more of these drive-throughs in the pipeline, but it still wants to learn from the ones it has to create a better customer experience.

“It’s about making it really easy for people to access what they need and try and make it as safe as possible for them to do that as well,” Wallis said. “So we’re looking in the next year or so, to start taking the learnings [sic] from that particular asset and building it into all of our assets.”

“For example, how can we get more cars through in a shorter period of time to make sure that we don’t have as much wait time for people? How do we accommodate those delivery providers? How do we make sure they can pick it up easily without coming in and getting in the way of customers?”

“So it’s more about modifying our existing platforms.”

Getting stronger during the pandemic

While COVID has seen many business operators switch up how they normally do business – whether that’s opening a delivery service or creating a new line of products – for KFC, it was about more reinforcing what it already does.

“It’s been an opportunity to amplify versus do something different,” Wallis said, and that meant ensuring its 36,000 workers felt safe coming to work so that they could then serve their customers with confidence.

Wallis added that the business has become even stronger as a result of the pandemic, which was “quite encouraging”.

“Our brand has always been quite a strong brand here in Australia, but during COVID it got stronger,” Wallis said. He explained that the company simplified its menu by removing some items, which meant it could deliver products much faster.

“Our speed of service improved and our customer satisfaction improved,” he said. “These things that are almost counterintuitive – you’d think during this time of crisis that things would get worse – but for us it really enabled us to test the culture, test our processes and systems and probably have confidence that we’ve got the right strategies to continue to grow.”

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