KFC is owned by Yum! Brands (the United States, NYSE: YUM), which was separated from PepsiCo on 6 October 1997.[1][2] Before Yum! Brands, KFC was owned by PepsiCo from 1986 to 1997.[2]
Evidence: Yum! Brands, Inc. Annual Report on Form 10-K filed 2026-02-20, SEC EDGAR, 20 February 2026. Verified from filings; last checked .
KFC grew from a roadside restaurant Harland Sanders ran in Kentucky from 1930, where he developed a pressure-frying method and a seasoning blend he began franchising in 1952 at the age of 62. It is the largest chicken restaurant chain in the world and is particularly dominant in China.
Sentences about KFC from Yum! Brands's latest annual filing[1], copied word for word.
KFC restaurants across the world offer fried and non-fried chicken products such as sandwiches, chicken strips, chicken-on-the-bone and other chicken products marketed under a variety of names.
A plain count of the times the name appears in the text of each annual report, not counting the start of a sentence. A brand that an owner writes about more is usually one it treats as central. The brand is named less often than it was three years earlier.
Controlling ownership as of . Brands grouped under the entity that owns them; large groups are collapsed.
Open the full Yum! Brands ownership tree →
See the full Yum! Brands brand portfolio (4) →
Yum! Brands controls 4 brands on Brandtree, 4 of them in restaurants & foodservice.
The 38 brands in burger & chicken chains on Brandtree belong to 23 owners. The largest is Jollibee Group, with 5; Yum! Brands has 4.
| Brand | Owner | Owner based in |
|---|---|---|
| Chowking | Jollibee Group | 🇵🇭 Philippines |
| Arby's | Inspire Brands | 🇺🇸 United States |
| Chester's | CP Foods | 🇹🇭 Thailand |
| Burger King | Restaurant Brands International | 🇨🇦 Canada |
| Papa Murphy's | MTY Group | 🇨🇦 Canada |
| Wimpy (Middle East) | Americana Restaurants | 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates |
| Steak n Shake | Biglari Holdings | 🇺🇸 United States |
| Choppies Fried Chicken | Choppies | 🇧🇼 Botswana |
Yum! Brands is a publicly listed company headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, founded in 1997. Brandtree records 4 brands under its control, and it is listed as NYSE: YUM.
Yum! Brands was spun off from PepsiCo in 1997 as Tricon Global Restaurants, taking the restaurant chains PepsiCo had bought in the 1970s and 1980s. It separated its Chinese business as a licensee in 2016 and now operates almost entirely through franchisees.
Brandtree records a controlling owner for 2,549 brands that began in the United States. 478 of them (19%) are now controlled by a company headquartered in another country; KFC is not one of them.
PepsiCo spun off its restaurant business as Tricon Global Restaurants, taking KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell out of the drinks and snacks company. PepsiCo had found that operating restaurants competed for capital with its packaged goods brands and complicated its relationships with other chains. Tricon renamed itself Yum! Brands in 2002.
The parent company of KFC is Yum! Brands, a publicly listed company headquartered in the United States.
Yes. KFC originated in the United States in 1930 and its owner, Yum! Brands, is also headquartered in the United States.
Yum! Brands has owned KFC since 6 October 1997.
Before Yum! Brands, KFC was owned by PepsiCo from 1986 until 1997.
Yes. As of 10 October 2026, KFC is still owned by Yum! Brands. The ownership record was last checked against primary sources on that date.
Last verified . Every ownership fact above is backed by one of these primary documents. Numbers in brackets in the text refer to this list.
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