KFC has opened what it’s calling a green outlet on the beach front in south Chennai. It will serve as a prototype/laboratory as from now on, all the brand’s outlets will be designed to be 20 per cent more energy- and water-efficient, says Niren Chaudhary, President, Yum! India.

Chaudhary told Business Line here that the outlet’s double-glazed windows, LED lights and light and body sensors would conserve energy. A solar panel would heat all the water necessary for the restaurant’s operations. The packaging is made from recycled material. The investment cost in such an outlet is 30 per cent higher, he said. However, prices are the same as in other stores.

In some of its Delhi operations, used cooking oil is being tested for utilisation as bio-fuel in generators. In fact, in Delhi, up to 95 per cent of solid waste is being recycled. The company wants to extend this norm to rest of the country, he said.

As part of its ‘Growth with a Big Heart’ mission, Yum! will contribute to better nutrition, environment and community in various ways, Chaudhary said. It will be “completely transparent” about what goes into its food and provide a variety of nutritional choices, he added.

Equal opportunity employment

KFC has also begun a programme to provide equal opportunities to the differently-abled. It has recruited 400 deaf/hearing-challenged people to staff its outlets and already has 12-13 stores where they form the majority of the employees. It aims to have a general manager from this group of employees in 2015.

Yum! operates a total of 500 restaurants across the KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell chains in India and its neighbouring countries.

The goal is to increase this number to 1,000 by 2015 and to over 2,000 by 2020. It has invested around $100 million in the market and plans to invest another $100-$120 million in the next five years.

>Sravanthi.challapalli@thehindu.co.in