Colonel Harland David Sanders was an American businessman, best known for founding fast food chicken restuarant chain Kentuky Fried Chicken (KFC) and later acting as the company's brand ambassador and symbol. His name and image are still symbols of the company today.
Sanders held a number of jobs in his early life, such as a steam engine stoker, insurance salesman, and filling station operator. He began selling fried chicken from his roadside restuarant in North Corbin, Kentucky, during the Great Depression. Recognizing the potential of the restuarant franchising concept, the first KFC franchise opened in South Salt Lake, Utah, in 1952. Which was operated by Pete Harman.
In the first year of selling the product, restaurant sales more than tripled, with 75% of the increase coming from sales of fried chicken. For Harman, the addition of fried chicken was a way of differentiating his restaurant from competitors; in Utah, a product hailing from Kentucky was unique and evoked imagery of Southern hospitality. Don Anderson, a sign painter hired by Harman, coined the name Kentucky Fried Chicken. After Harman's success, several other restaurant owners franchised the concept and paid Sanders $0.04 per chicken (equivalent to $0.41 in 2021).
The franchise approach became highly successful; KFC was one of the first food chains to expand internationally, opening outlets in Canada and later the UK, Australia, Mexico and Jamaica by thea mid-1960s. Sanders obtained a patent protecting his method of pressure frying chicken in 1962, and trademarked the phrase "It's Finger Lickin' Good" in 1963. The company's rapid expansion to more than 600 locations became overwhelming for the aging Sanders. In 1964, then 73 years old, he sold the Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation for $2 million ($17.5 million today) to a partnership headed by John Y. Brown Jr. and Jack C. Massey.