Chicken Licken (restaurant)

Chicken Licken was founded in South Africa by George Sombonos, the son of a Greek immigrant restaurant owner. Sombonos learned the restaurant trade in the 1970s at the Dairy Den, his father's restaurant in Ridgeway, a suburb in the southern Inner City region of Johannesburg. KFC entered the South African market in 1971. Sombonos bought Chicken Licken's secret fried chicken recipe from the owner of a fast food outlet in Waco, Texas, for US $1,000 while touring the United States in 1972 and introduced it to the Dairy Den. In 1975 he started serving black customers in their cars when apartheid segregation laws restricted their access to restaurants. In 1982 he gave away the first two franchises, based in Soweto and Alexandra, as the company was still unknown and he was unable to sell them. and is next in line to succeed him running the family-owned business. ==Locations==

Initially, new Chicken Licken outlets were only opened in South African townships. Since the apartheid era ended in 1994, the black middle class has moved out of the townships and the company has changed its focus to expanding in higher income areas and upmarket shopping malls. Countries • Botswana – 18 outlets (2021) • South Africa – 250 outlets (2013) ==Branding==

, Cape Town In 1981 Sombonos set up Golden Fried Chicken (Pty) Ltd and registered the trading name Chicken Licken, one of the names of the Henny Penny fable which was suggested by a waiter. The company's most popular product is its hot wings introduced in 1992. • Popcorn Chicken Chicken Licken's food is positioned as a more affordable option than that of its main competitors in South Africa, KFC and Nando's. Chicken Licken was ranked second after KFC in the Fast Food and Restaurant Chains category of the Sunday Times Markinor 2007 Top Brands Survey, followed closely by Nando's which was ranked second in the previous year. The survey was based on consumer interviews and took into account factors such as brand awareness and trust. Chicken Licken was a client of the Net#work BBDO advertising agency until 2016 when advertising agency Joe Public United Early Chicken Licken commercials were conceptualised by and starred actor and creative director Joe Mafela. Mafela starred in the Zulu television comedy series '''Sgudi 'Snaysi'' (1986–1992), and authored the company's "It's good, good, good, it's good its nice" jingle during the making of a Chicken Licken commercial in 1986. A subsequent retro style advertising campaign featured Dr CL Phunk, a character played by African-American actor Sydney Hall who dispenses Chicken Licken as a cure-all. In 2007 George Sombonos won the inaugural Creative Circle's Marketer of the Year award for advertising agency clients for "25 Yrs of Soul", a nostalgic commercial featuring the 1983 hit song "Burn Out" by local musician Sipho "Hotstix" Mabuse. In 2013 he won the Marketing Leadership and Innovation Award category of the Loerie Awards. ==Suppliers==

Chicken Licken obtains its chickens from Rainbow Chicken Limited, a JSE-listed company which is South Africa's largest producer of chickens. It has imported chickens from Brazil in the past when Brazilian exporters began undercutting Rainbow and other South African chicken farmers and flooding the market with surplus chicken. It obtains its spices from Robertsons Spices, a Unilever brand of herbs and spices. Chicken Licken uses fryers supplied by Henny Penny, an American manufacturer of cooking equipment used by major fast food companies such as KFC and McDonald's. == Controversies and Lawsuits ==

Over the years, Chicken Licken has embarked on a hostile campaign to enforce its trademark of the word "soul", aggressively targeting any business, no matter how big or small, that uses the word in its name or as a product. Chicken Licken listed the word "soul" in 1994 as a trademark under the classes of 29 and 30, utilising the word as part of their lexicon in marketing campaigns and product names. The trademark meant that the word could not be used by anyone else in trade to describe certain types of food and drink, but was later extended to include restaurants and food services. Targets of lawsuits over the years have included vegan restaurants, independent stores, cafes, food manufacturers, startups, and guest lodges. In almost all instances, the targets of the legal actions have been small businesses that could be easily intimidated by the R3 billion corporate. The first noted instance to receive widespread publicity occurred when the fast food giant took legal action against Durban-based vegan restaurant Oh My Soul and frozen food manufacturer We Are Food in 2019. in 2009, Native Soul, East Coast Soul Kitchen, Soulhouse, Soul Kitchen, Soul Souvlaki, and Tha'phe' Soul Food. == See also ==