Free Chicken Freakout Day 2: KFC RUNNING OUT of Stock

If the demand for the free grilled chicken combo meal continues at its current pace, KFC could run out of chicken by Saturday. An anonymous source explains why to Business Insider: "The stores cannot cook the product fast enough, sales were up 25-35% BEFORE this. A franchisee today told me KFC is projected to strip their entire supply chain of bird by Saturday. I am not making that up. They are scrambling to source more chicken before Sunday. By Sunday, because it's Mothers Day, one of their busiest days of the year. It's possible they could be out of chicken on Mothers Day."

Well that screws our Mother's Day plans. But perhaps it's for the best, as lines outside KFC have reportedly stretched out the door and down the block at some Manhattan locations. The Daily News swung by the KFC that was pandemonium yesterday, and talks to free lunch lovers like Julio Layana, 36, who reveals the secret to the promotion's overwhelming popularity: "I'm just really hungry." 26-year-old Adam Antreassian, a financial analyst, got on line at 11 a.m. and planned to get coffee with his chicken and mashed potatoes: "I thought, 'I'm pretty hungry. I'm going to get some KFC for breakfast." And Midtown Lunch observed one pitiful man wait on line for an hour only to get to the counter "and realize you needed a coupon (which he didn’t have.)"

The coupons for the free meals—which include two pieces of KFC's new grilled chicken, two sides, and a biscuit—can no longer be downloaded, but they are redeemable through May 19th. But can enough chickens be slaughtered to meet the demand? One Business Insider commenter astutely sums up the problem: "Anyone who printed the coupon now has made 50 copies at Kinkos and is now eating breakfast, lunch and dinner for FREE for the next two weeks. That's not a consumer trial, that's a Chicken Lovers Bailout."

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By John Del Signore in Food on May 7, 2009 5:25 PM

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felixthecat2

Bird flu suspect patient dies in Indonesia

www.chinaview.cn 2009-03-26 18:01:43 Print

JAKARTA, March 26 (Xinhua) -- A two-year boy suspected of contracting bird flu, identified as Wahyu Ibnu Saputra, died at Arifin Achmad Public Hospital in Pekanbaru, capital of Indonesia' s Riau Province on Thursday.

Wahyu died after suffering a respiratory problem and falling unconscious, Antara news agency quoted Dr Azizman Saad, coordinator of the bird flu control at the Arifin Achmad hospital, as saying in Pekanbaru on Thursday.

The boy died at around 2 a.m. local time on Thursday, he said.

However, the hospital could not confirmed the cause of Wahyu's death, whether it was because of H5N1 (bird flu) virus or not, as the hospital was still waiting for the result of laboratory test of the patient's blood sample.

Meanwhile, the Garut Health Service in West Java province has recorded 46 cases of bird flu in Garut District up to March 23, 2009.

The 46 cases included one surviving bird flu patient, four dead bird flu victims, 36 surviving bird flu suspects and five dead bird flu suspects, Antara quoted Dr Hendy Budiman, head of the Garut health service, as saying on Thursday.

The district health authorities also found two new bird flu suspects in Cintanagara village, Cigedug sub-district, recently, he said.

The two bird flu suspects were currently being treated at a local hospital and their condition were improving, he said.

Around 50 chickens died suddenly in the village of the patients, he said, adding that his office was currently investigating the sudden death of the chickens.

Indonesia is the hardest hit country by the bird flu in the world. The Health Ministry of the country said on March 19 said that 119 people had been killed by the disease since 2003

russ

#1 the coupon clearly states that it cannot be used on mother's day.

#2 what fool would waste an hour (let alone even 15 minutes!) for something that costs only $3.99?

What cheap bastards.

NannyState

Heyyy, my grilled chicken has a fin.WTF?

Anonymous Lost Cause

I saw a pic of the chicken someplace else and it still looked fried -- it looked like fried chicken that had been on a grill for a minute or two. Weird stuff.

Spirit of 76

"Anyone who printed the coupon now has made 50 copies at Kinkos and is now eating breakfast, lunch and dinner for FREE for the next two weeks. That's not a consumer trial, that's a Chicken Lovers Bailout."

That might be the case with the original coupon, if they did indeed post it as a PDF. But when I tried that first night, it told me I had to download and install a program to print the coupon complete with barcode. I'm guessing the program would get a unique identifier from the coupon database for each computer it was printed from and put it in the barcode, so photocopying it wouldn't get you more than one meal. Still, not bulletproof. I could have gone back to the office that night, installed the program on every computer and printed out a whole bunch of unique coupons. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if KFC is no longer honoring those very first coupons.

valeriob

If we distribute enough copies could we potentially bankrupt Orpah? 3.99 a pop...

I'm going to make it rain free chicken coupons in times square!

schizofriendly

I cannot eat chicken after seeing Poultrygeist: Night Of the Chicken Dead.

Sheesh.

KiljoyWasHere

The chicken...the chicken has declared jihad on us all!

Toby von Meistersinger

I blame Oprah, as apparently Oprah is the source of all evil starting with Dr. Phil.

SeasTooFarToReach

Whoaaaaaa. So you are telling me that the coupons did not have a numbered code for the cashiers to input into the system to detect fraud?

Someone underestimated the value of free

After lunch, around 2:20pm, I stood in the corner of Madison and 42, looked KFC's way and I could not see the end of the line. It was outside, in front of the Modell's and beyond!

If I had a coupon I'd keep it for later. Everyone wants their chicken now. Use it next week and it'd be better.