From KFC's press release on its new sandwich, the bunless Double Down:
When introducing a bunless sandwich, the obvious question is: what happens to all the buns? To celebrate the launch of the Double Down, KFC will do some good by donating the "unneeded" sandwich buns to feed the hungry....it's great to find a good home for some of those 'unneeded' KFC buns at food banks around the country.
Great. Hungry people serve as a prop to promote their new ultra-bad-for-you sandwich, and the buns - which are not good enough for their paying customers - will go to the needy. All at a time when economic conditions force large numbers of Americans to subsist on low cost fast food (like KFC) and whatever they can get from food banks.
What sick, inconsiderate, conscienceless marketing exec came up with this idea at KFC? And which other sick people at KFC gave it the thumbs up? I am writing this in light of a recent post on this blog, "The Stress of Food Bank Food," which describes in detail what it is like to live on food from a food bank. And that was written by somebody who knew that his several days of lousy, meager, unhealthy foods were short term as they were part of an experiment.
Imagine being a child whose introduction to the world is a household so unstable that meals are never a given because your parents - try their might - cannot always provide for you? Or the shame of being that parent, who wants to give his or her child everything a child needs but still cannot. Think about the fear as the days of the month tick by and your salary and food stamps run low, knowing that at some point the money - and the food - will run out and your only hope of eating comes from a food bank. Is that funny to KFC? And will those people who line up at food banks be better off thanks to KFC's donation of refined, nutrient-devoid bread spiked with high fructose corn syrup?
A more caring entity would use the money spent on these buns and instead provide food banks with nutritious, high quality food that will benefit those who rely on food banks. But, of course, the budget for these buns no doubt came out of KFC's marketing budget, not their "social responsibility" budget. Thus, the recipients of the buns are no more than a prop to KFC. The hungry people are only there as a joke to portray how unnecessary the buns are for the new sandwich that substitutes two patties of fried chicken for bread. The Double Down itself is sick, but this stunt is sicker. And sadder still is that American food banks rely on this kind of "generosity," where corporations give them whatever they cannot sell (or in this case, whatever serves their latest marketing campaign) and then pat themselves on the back for their generosity. I would like to see the execs of KFC - all of them - try living a week on food bank rations and then reconsider their donations. |
