The thigh is one amongst many of the parts of a chicken sold every day at KFC. It is known for the delicious seasoning that coats the meat. The seasoning is made up of Colonel Sanders’ mixture of 11 herbs and spices, found in his “secret” recipe. When I was young, my aunt worked as a chef at our local KFC. She would come home with a bag of KFC seasoning and make us homemade KFC. Despite working there, she had no clue what the contents of the seasoning were. In 2001, the New York Times reported that the recipe “is locked in a company safe and treated as a closely guarded trade secret. The ingredients are said to be known only to a handful of employees who have signed confidentiality pledges”. The spice mix comes from two different companies, Griffith Laboratories and McCormick, with neither company having all the information. The original recipe, handwritten and signed by Colonel Sanders, with no known copy, is stored in a vault at the headquarters of KFC. Only two people have access to the recipe at a time, and these are the executives of the company. The executives are not allowed to travel together for security reasons. For example, if they both died on a trip, then no one in the world would have access to the recipe. It is evident that KFC has made an effort to deliberately keep this knowledge confidential, so yes, some knowledge does belong only to particular communities of knowers.

 

“Harland Sanders.” Britannica Academic. https://academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/Harland-Sanders/65467.

 

“How KFC Keeps Its Biggest Secret a Secret.” Now I Know. https://nowiknow.com/how-kfc-keeps-its-biggest-secret-a-secret/.