Takeaway Truth: KFC’s Nacho Box

Takeaway Truth is an occasional Lifehacker feature where we compare marketing images against what you actually get served. Today: KFC’s Nacho Box. Aye yai yai!

In recent years, there has been a trend among takeaway franchises to experiment with cuisines outside of their traditional menu offerings. Examples include McDonald’s extensive Chicken burger range, the KFC Zinger Pie and Pizza Hut’s cheeseburger pizza.

Presumably, the idea is to entice new customers into the fold by catering to disparate taste buds. Now, KFC has launched a new “Nacho” range in a bid to grab some of those sweet Mexican pesos.

With Mad Mex and Guzman y Gomez going from strength to strength in the Aussie market, it makes economic sense for KFC to add a little Mesoamerican flavour to its menu. But do people really want Mexican food mixed with KFC chicken? And what do the results look like? Takeaway Truth is about to find out.

The hero of KFC’s new Nacho range is the Nacho Box, which consists of KFC’s Popcorn Chicken topped with cheese, salsa and corn chips. It costs $3.95 and packs in 2341kJ of energy. Here’s the commercial:

The first thing we noticed about the above advert is that KFC didn’t play up the Mexican angle — there’s not a sombrero or mariachi group in sight. Bravo. The second thing we noticed is that the product is barely shown. In every shot bar one, the Nacho Box is either out of focus or turned away from the viewer so you can only see the lid. It’s almost as if KFC is trying to hide its appearance. Why could that be, we wonder?

Here’s what the KFC Nacho Box looks like in the advertising image:

And here’s what we actually got served:

Here’s a side-by-side comparison:

The most glaring difference is the lack of visible corn chips — instead of popping out like individual hors d’oeuvres, the chips were all buried at the bottom of the box. This made the snack more difficult to eat barehanded than the marketing image suggests.

As is invariably the case, the presentation is also a lot sloppier in the real version. Yeah, yeah, we understand that it’s delusional to expect every meal an employee makes to be worthy of a poster; but is a modicum of care really too much to ask? Seriously, look at the image below:

Nachos? It looks more like week-old garbage mixed with surgery leftovers — would you willingly stick that in your mouth? Our advice to KFC is to leave the maracas at home and stick to being clucky.

Truth rating: 4/10

Which fast food franchise or menu item would you like us to tackle next? Let us know in the comments section below.


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