SHANGHAI — Yum China Holdings Inc. has announced the launch of a new campaign to promote balanced diets by offering customers more fruit and vegetable options. The campaign launched simultaneously at more than 6,000 KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell stores in China, before they gradually expand to more locations.
A core component of the campaign is the “Fruit and Vegetables 100+” program that encourages customers in China to add at least 100g of fruit and vegetables to their meals. KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell will also launch a series of new and updated fruit and vegetable based products in China, while leveraging their digital platforms to raise public awareness of nutrition. One such new item is strawberry ice cream offered by KFC China.
As China’s largest restaurant company, Yum China is committed to offering a wide variety of foods to customers, it said. To achieve this, the company focuses on food innovation, upgrading product offerings with recipe changes, using creative ingredient combinations, and adopting multiple cooking methods. For example, at KFC, approximately 80 percent of non-beverage breakfast menu items are made from the oven or other healthy cooking methods, the company said.
Yum China regularly reviews its ingredients and through ingredient optimization has reduced the amount of salt, sugar, and oil in its recipes. KFC alone eliminated about 118 tons of salt from its products between 2018 and the end of 2020. In addition, in 2020, Yum China became one of the first restaurant companies to introduce plant-based products to China when it launched plant-based beef burgers and chicken nuggets at KFC, plant-based beef burgers at Pizza Hut and plant-based beef and pork tacos at Taco Bell.
This latest campaign is designed to support recommendations outlined in the National Health Commission’s Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents that adults require a daily intake of 300-500 grams of vegetables to maintain a balanced diet. Yum China is also an active supporter of the National Nutrition Week since its establishment in 2016. In support of this annual initiative, Yum China shared nutritional knowledge on tray liners in KFC restaurants across China and has reached more than 140 million customers during the past six years.
Yum China adds that it regularly collaborates with scientific institutions to support scientific research and promote dietary health, such as partnering with the China Nutrition Society to establish the China Nutrition Society – Yum China Dietary Health Foundation. By 2020, the foundation had funded more than 80 scientific research projects, focusing mainly on dining out and urban resident health since its establishment in 2007.
