Fried fusion

Have you ever tried traditional Chinese youtiao - a stick-shaped twisted doughnut - with a cup of coffee and an American breakfast?

Fancy restaurants call the melding of cuisines "fusion food". Now the less luxurious are also combining the traditions of East and West - KFCs across the nation have added the venerable Chinese breakfast item to a menu that was first developed long ago in rural Kentucky.

Beijing resident Yang Mingxuan has been eating youtiao with soybean milk for breakfast for nearly half a century and now sometimes visits a KFC outlet for it.

"The youtiao is ok, but the price is not so good and the menu set is somewhat strange," says Yang, 49.

The fast-food chain started to serve the quintessential Chinese food for breakfast beginning January 21 in all of its outlets across China. The youtiao are half the standard size seen in local restaurants and cost 3 yuan, nearly four times as much.

But Yang's daughter, 19, seems very satisfied.

"The youtiao is hot and delicious, the size is cute and with coffee is cool," she says, adding that she likes having breakfast in a clean and comfortable place like KFC and starting the day in a happy mood.

KFC says its youtiao contains no alum, which has been used by Chinese youtiao makers to keep the food fluffy and crisp for hundreds of years, but its use has sparked health worries. So KFC calls its deep-fried dough sticks "anxin youtiao"- anxin means safe and secure in Chinese.

A KFC Beijing spokesperson surnamed Xu was quoted by Beijing Business Today newspaper saying her company spent over a year to come up an alternative to alum, but declined to elaborate further about the ingredient.

The company says in a statement that it believes the new addition is a perfect complement to its already popular Chinese-style porridge selections. More Chinese food is expected to enrich KFC's breakfast menu in the near future.

McDonald's, KFC's most competitive counterpart in China, says it currently has no plan to roll out youtiao.

Menu localization

Menu localization is now a key strategy for Western food chains, as both KFC and McDonald's have developed a range of Chinese-style fast food in recent years.

Yum! Brands Inc's KFC took the lead to promote old Beijing chicken rolls to the market in 2003. Egg drop soups and three tastes of porridge followed. In addition to similar rolls and soups, McDonald's added Chinese-style scrambled eggs for breakfast last March.

Though it has become a trend, how to "industrialize" Chinese food has proven to be "a stiff test of the foreigners' kitchen operations", says Huang Guoxiong, a professor of economics with Renmin University of China.

"KFC is wise to choose youtiao, as cooking standards of this fried food are easy to formulate and implement," says Huang.

More important, he says, is that it emphasizes the healthiness - non-alum - of its youtiao to attract Chinese consumers whose concerns about food safety are rapidly increasing.

However, some food experts challenge KFC whether the alum alternative is itself healthy and safe.

Battle for youtiao

Youtiao is one of the most popular breakfast foods in China, before a common sight with streetside vendors making and selling it in the morning. But due to urban administration and food safety regulations, youtiao in cities can now only be made in restaurants.

Some savvy businesses started to include youtiao on their fast food menus and provide it the whole day, with Shanghai YongHe King the leader in serving it along with soybean milk at its chain outlets nationwide.

Founded by a Taiwanese, YongHe King was acquired by Tony Tan Caktiong, a Filipino Chinese and owner of the Philippine's largest fast food chain company Jollibee Foods Corp. Following the acquisition of an 85 percent stake in Shanghai YongHe King Co Ltd with $22.5 million in 2004, he bought the remaining 15 percent for $6 million considering the youtiao provider's fast growth and promising potential. By the end of last June, YongHe King had 102 chains nationwide.

"KFC will not pose a threat to YongHe King - we are not competitors," a public communication employee at YongHe King who declines to be named tells China Business Weekly.

KFC sells youtiao every morning before 9:30 am, but YongHe King offers it the entire day and even started a 24-hour online order and express delivery network in several cities.

YongHe King's youtiao, four times the size of KFC's, is tagged at 4 yuan. Its sweet soybean milk and salted soybean milk, priced at 4 yuan and 4.5 yuan respectively, are very popular.

The YongHe King staff also stresses the safety of their food. "All of our food is in line with or higher than the national standards," he says.

Observers say YongHe King is a kind of Western-style Chinese food restaurant, with an open kitchen, standardized cooking system, hygienic conditions.

Both Yang and his daughter like YongHe King - the father enjoys the authentic taste while she likes the clean environment.

But Yang says still prefers to have youtiao at small restaurants.

Professor Huang says the consumer group for KFC and YongHe King youtiao is younger people with a decent income, while KFC adds choices for adults who bring their children to the Western chain for Chinese-style food.

"Chinese market is huge and diversified, so no matter KFC, YongHe King or other restaurants - they all have their own consumer groups," Huang says.

(China Daily 01/28/2008 page1)