From exclusive items to portion sizes, we wanted to find out the differences between KFC in the US and Mexico. This is "Food Wars."
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00:00From calorie counts to portion sizes, we're going to find out the difference between KFC
00:04USA and Mexico.
00:06This is Food Wars.
00:10In Mexico, our KFC chicken comes in 10 different portions.
00:13We have one piece, two pieces, three pieces, four pieces, six pieces, and then we move
00:20on to the buckets.
00:21That actually, let me tell you something, we have a bigger portion than the one in USA.
00:26Here we have the buckets, we have one with eight pieces.
00:30We have 12 pieces, we have 15 pieces, 16 pieces, and our biggest, 18 pieces.
00:3818 piece looks awesome, and I am jealous, Poncho.
00:40That's very impressive.
00:41I guess technically you can get any number of pieces you want in these combos, but still
00:44an 18 piece.
00:45Mwah.
00:46I love it.
00:47You get one piece on its own, a la carte, then you can get a two, three, and four piece, all
00:52with a combo, which of course includes a side, a biscuit, and a drink.
00:56If that's enough chicken for you, you can upgrade two buckets.
00:59You can get yourself an eight piece, own, a 12 piece, and 16 piece.
01:14Ready for this one?
01:18That is so gross.
01:20I actually want to try one.
01:21Let's just do this one.
01:23These are my favorites.
01:24Let's try it.
01:25It looks crunchy.
01:26Let's go.
01:27It's actually very good.
01:31I haven't eaten today.
01:32It's super juicy.
01:33It's crunchy.
01:34I feel like you guys can hear it.
01:36It's good.
01:37While I'm here.
01:38Let's try it.
01:39As greasy as it looks, man, KFC is undefeated.
01:44In Mexico, you can get the chicken nuggets on five different portions.
01:49You have six pieces, eight pieces, 12 pieces, 25 pieces, and 35 pieces.
01:56Here we have one, two, and that's it.
02:00They messed up our order.
02:01So we just have, I guess, the 35 and the 25.
02:06Here in the U.S., they delivered all of the nuggets, and I am totally stoked.
02:10I love the nuggets here.
02:12In the U.S., five size options.
02:14You got the five piece, the eight piece, the 12 piece, the 36 piece.
02:23Get a load of this, Mexico.
02:24The 50 piece.
02:26I love this so much.
02:27I didn't realize we had this until today, ordering this food.
02:31This is me, Sunday morning, hungover, on the couch, laptop on my chest, watching YouTube,
02:39staring through the screen, just going to town on this.
02:42Here we go.
02:44Okay, that's a lot of chicken nuggets.
02:49And there's something weird here, like, can you see the colors?
02:52This is like brown, and this is like light brown.
02:55So I don't know, it shouldn't be like different flavors, let's just try it.
03:00I feel like they actually overcooked this.
03:02KFC used to have popcorn chicken, and then they got rid of that and started doing nuggets.
03:08This is the size of a nugget.
03:09I don't remember how big or small a popcorn chicken was.
03:11I don't know exactly size-wise when a piece of chicken stops being popcorn and becomes
03:16a nugget.
03:17Either way, we have nuggets now.
03:20And they are so good.
03:21In Mexico, you can find the fries in four different portions.
03:25We have papa chicas, that is small, and it's actually very small, there's like five fries
03:32in there.
03:33Can you see them?
03:34Then we have papas medianas, what is medium.
03:37It's a little bit more fries, like six more fries.
03:40Then we go to the grandes, what is big, big fries.
03:44It's a little bit better.
03:46Then we have the family size, or familiar, that's how you say it in Spanish.
03:52Looks good.
03:53It has one ketchup, only one ketchup for all this.
03:57Our fries, two sizes, the individual and the large.
04:01Now we're going to weigh the family size.
04:04One more.
04:09That is 285 grams.
04:12Ours weighs 293 grams.
04:15KFC doesn't get enough props for the fries.
04:17These fries, oof, so good.
04:19Here we have our Kentucky Chicken Sandwich Mayo.
04:23Actually it's pretty big.
04:24I'm surprised.
04:25Let's put it here, 329 grams.
04:29Well, actually, from all the things that I tried today, this is my favorite.
04:36The bread is good.
04:38I like it a lot.
04:40And of course, this work of art right here is the KFC Chicken Sandwich.
04:46Crispy, delicious, and ours weighs 255 grams.
04:50Oh, all right, okay, Mexico, you got a heartier sandwich, that's fine, but I think 255 grams
04:59for one sandwich is pretty nice.
05:02Here's everything you will find at KFC Mexico, but not in the USA.
05:08Here's everything at a KFC in the US you won't find in Mexico.
05:12In Mexico, besides the secret recipe, you can find four different flavors.
05:16We have the cruji, we have the spicy barbecue that is over here.
05:24We have the habanero, and we have the jalapeno.
05:30Let's try the cruji.
05:33Looks crispy and juicy.
05:40Very good.
05:41I'm gonna try the spicy barbecue.
05:45Very good.
05:46It's like sweet, but spicy, but it's actually very good.
05:49Should we try this one?
05:52This is the habanero.
05:54It's definitely more spicy than the other one that I tried.
05:57I feel like I like this one, because I like spicy, spicy things.
06:02I feel like you guys are missing out in the USA, you guys should put this on the menu.
06:06I would love to try that spicy barbecue and habanero chicken.
06:09That looks amazing.
06:11It probably isn't that much harder to make in the US than it is in Mexico.
06:15Whatever you guys do in Mexico, just send those spices or sauces up, please.
06:20I want to try that habanero chicken so bad.
06:24We have three-ish exclusive chicken types, flavors, chicken styles here in the US.
06:31Two that are location specific would be the grilled chicken and the hot and spicy.
06:35The grilled is obviously what you know grilled chicken looks like.
06:37The hot and spicy, I have had it before.
06:40It's not very spicy or hot.
06:41It was pretty good.
06:43I do like it.
06:44I wish it was available here in Southern California, but one thing that we do have that
06:49is throughout the country that is maybe similar to what you guys have, but not really.
06:53This is our Extra Crispy.
06:56I love the Extra Crispy.
06:57Actually, I think if it was up to me, this would be the default.
07:01And if you want to like less crispy or less fun, you can get what you saw before.
07:05The crispy, just listen to this, Chris.
07:11Fantastic flavor.
07:12I love it.
07:13Fun fact.
07:14In Mexico, most people refer to KFC as Kentucky Fried Chicken.
07:17Like, we don't usually say KFC.
07:20We always say Kentucky Fried Chicken.
07:22So, these are my favorite.
07:24These are the Quetiras.
07:26It's pretty much the chicken, how do you say it in English?
07:32The chicken tenders.
07:33Yeah.
07:34We call it Quetiras.
07:35It's like super popular here in Mexico, everybody loves Quetiras.
07:38And we have four different flavors.
07:40We have the classic one, just the regular crunchy.
07:45We have the jalapeño, looks spicy.
07:49We have the habanero, looks red.
07:53And we have the barbecue.
07:55No, I haven't tried the jalapeño.
07:58It tastes a lot like jalapeño.
08:02I feel like I just buy the jalapeño.
08:05My favorite for sure, I feel like it should be this one, the habanero.
08:11Just because it's crunchy still.
08:12I'm just gonna try the barbecue now, just because I like Quetiras.
08:17Fourth place, it goes to jalapeño.
08:21Third place, I'm gonna put the basic one.
08:24Then, the habanero, right?
08:28And first place, barbecue.
08:31My favorite.
08:32Your tenders also look amazing.
08:34Oh, those flavors, I want those so bad.
08:36You guys are so lucky.
08:37Here again, I don't know, we're just going to specifics here.
08:39We have an extra crispy option of our tenders.
08:41You guys do not.
08:42Maybe it's the same as the regular, who knows?
08:45Oh, could have been the thought that counts, but not very crispy.
08:50Hello.
08:50Nice try.
08:51Onto the sandwiches.
08:52In Mexico, we actually have a much bigger selection of sandwiches than the USA.
08:57We have the Kentucky Chicken Sandwich Chipotle Bacon.
09:03We have the Kentucky Chicken Sandwich Barbecue Bacon.
09:07We have the Kentucky Chicken Sandwich Mayo Spicy, the Cruncher, and the Big Crunch.
09:14We also have the Quatiras Chicken Sandwich, but they forgot to put it in, so we don't have it.
09:19Mexico, if you just want to micro-dose chicken sandwiches, KFC in the USA has you covered.
09:26This is the Chicken Little.
09:27This one is the Spicy Chicken Sandwich.
09:30Guys, I mean, you clearly have spice down over there, so, but here in the U.S., it's hard to get a really good spicy chicken sandwich.
09:42So good.
09:43Chicken, of course, is crispy, cooked perfectly.
09:45Enough sauce on here to give it spice that'll make it too overwhelming.
09:47I love the bun.
09:48I mean, it's fantastic.
09:51I've been singing the praise of KFC's Chicken Sandwiches, both spicy and regular, for years on this show, because it's fantastic.
09:59It might be the best one you can get in fast food.
10:02KFC.
10:03Ooh, this one.
10:04This is still really crispy.
10:05All right.
10:08The top two, Popeyes and KFC, and I want to say, at any given day, it could be Popeyes one, KFC two.
10:23Those guys are neck and neck.
10:25Onto the sides.
10:26Well, actually, in Mexico, we have one side that you guys don't have in USA, which is the cheesy fries.
10:33Then I'm showing you a picture right here because we tried to order twice, and for some reason we didn't get it.
10:39So there is a picture.
10:41Hopefully I try it someday.
10:43We have sweet corn that you can get.
10:46Corn off the cob.
10:48Yeah, corn is great.
10:49Hey, Mexico, this ridiculous thing in front of me is called a famous bull.
10:54It's a self-proclaimed famous bull.
10:56It might be more of an infamous bull.
10:58Here's what it is.
10:59It's pretty much a combination of all the sides in one thing.
11:04This tub is almost filled to the top with mashed potatoes, then covered in gravy.
11:09It's already right there.
11:10You're like, that's a lot of mashed potatoes and gravy.
11:12They didn't stop there.
11:13They also put corn on here and chicken nuggets.
11:17Used to be popcorn chicken and cheese.
11:20And is that everything?
11:21Yeah.
11:22And I mean, I understand people like all these things assembled on a plate.
11:29And I understand that it is kind of hard to eat KFC on the go.
11:33People who want to bring it back for lunch and get a little messy.
11:36So I guess I understand why this was invented.
11:40But it just looks so sad.
11:42But let me get a bite of everything.
11:44So it tastes fine.
11:48It's all those things I like in a bowl that's kind of weird.
11:52Last thing I'll show off is a pot pie.
11:54Look at this, Mexico.
11:56Look at this, guys.
11:57This is a side.
11:58This is not a side.
11:59This is a meal right here.
12:00This pot pie is a staple of Southern cuisine.
12:04So you see how Kentucky fried chicken.
12:06Kind of like unearth it or open it up.
12:12And inside you have almost like a thick hearty chicken stew almost.
12:18Previous at KFC episodes that kind of lay into the pot pie.
12:23But it's actually growing on me.
12:25It's not bad.
12:26It's just not even my top 10 things I would get at KFC.
12:28In Mexico, we have a few exclusive sauces.
12:31So you know what that means.
12:33Sauce Talk.
12:35Sauce Talk.
12:37We have Texas barbecue.
12:39Chipotle humado, that means smoked chipotle.
12:43We have jalapeño.
12:45Fresa, that is strawberry.
12:48Mango Furioso, which is Furious mango.
12:52And sweet chili.
12:54We also have one that we're missing right here.
12:57It's the buffalo intenso.
12:59Somewhat good news and bad news.
13:01The good news is we have three possibly four exclusive KFC U.S. sauces.
13:06The bad news, they only gave me one.
13:09So I'll start with this one and then explain the other one.
13:11You can get a honey barbecue here in the U.S.
13:14It's nice.
13:15It's sweet.
13:16A little smoky.
13:17Definitely recommend it if you're in the U.S. and want to try it.
13:20Also in the U.S. you can get a side of honey.
13:22You also get a hot sauce, which they forgot.
13:25For dessert in Mexico, you can get half a liter or a liter of ice cream.
13:29But they didn't have that today because the machine was broken or something.
13:32And you also can get pies.
13:35What is apple pie or cheese pie, blackberry.
13:41Okay, the pie looks like this.
13:44This is like a small little baby pie.
13:50Mmm.
13:51It's alright.
13:52It's sweet.
13:53But it's dry.
13:54On to desserts.
13:55Two exclusive desserts you can get at the KFC in the U.S.
13:58The Colonel's Homestyle.
14:00Brownie.
14:01I'm losing it.
14:02It's the chicken.
14:03And the chocolate chip cake.
14:04We've done the cake a million times.
14:05Have we done this before?
14:06I don't know if I remember.
14:08Let's make it a little brownish here.
14:13It has this wonderful, like, gooey texture to it.
14:16But it's not, like, too sticky, you know?
14:18No.
14:21In Mexico, you can find six different types of drinks.
14:25You can find Coca-Cola, Coke Zero, Fanta, Sprite, Cidral Mundet,
14:31which is apple soda, and fused tea.
14:35Exclusive drinks.
14:36In the U.S., our KFC does Pepsi products.
14:39Mexico does Coke products.
14:41To be honest, I didn't know about this until yesterday when I put in this order.
14:45But currently, right now, at the KFC, I don't know if this is national or just in my part of the country,
14:51but they're adding blackberry flavoring to any one of their fountain drinks.
14:56And I'm like, hell yes.
14:58The problem is I visually can't tell which are which.
15:01So I'm going to go through the hits here and see what's what.
15:06And there's blackberry Pepsi.
15:07This one is...
15:11Oh.
15:12What is that?
15:13You know what this is?
15:14This is the Mountain Dew Sweet Lightning and Blackberry flavor.
15:18And wow.
15:19That's a good one.
15:20I'm putting that down there.
15:21This one right here, we have...
15:23I think it's that Pepsi.
15:25This blackberry flavoring is like frying my brain.
15:29Starry.
15:30Not a big starry guy, but actually, that's not the bad.
15:34Hmm.
15:35I think this is the Blackberry Lemonade.
15:39This might be Blackberry Starry, yeah.
15:45Okay, this one I can tell just by the color is Mountain Dew Sweet Lightning.
15:48I love Mountain Dew Sweet Lightning.
15:50I know.
15:51I have the palette of a 14-year-old boy, but it's great.
15:54America, listen to me.
15:55I don't know why this is available right now as we're filming this towards the end of March.
16:00And I don't know if it's going to be available when this video comes out.
16:03So, somehow, if you have the Blackberry addition flavoring to your drinks at your local KFC, do it.
16:12The ones that I think I enjoyed were the Blackberry Lemonade, the Blackberry Sweet Lightning.
16:17Hey, the Blackberry Starry actually did it for me.
16:20So, if you can add, I think if you add Blackberry to any one of the citrusy ones, it's legit.
16:26Here we have our chicken sandwich combo that comes with a medium drink and medium fries.
16:37This cost 139 pesos.
16:41That meal in the U.S. is $10.99.
16:44Mexico's biggest menu item, it's the 18 pieces bucket that comes with 18 pieces of chicken,
16:50four biscuits, three sides, and a big drink.
16:55That costs 629 pesos.
16:57Our closest meal to that size is the 16-piece, which comes with only 16 pieces of chicken,
17:03four sides, but eight biscuits.
17:05And it's $50.99.
17:07The two fewer chicken pieces and extra biscuit puts this meal's cost 41% higher than the Mexican meal.
17:13But in the U.S., we have an even more expensive meal.
17:15That's the 16-piece tenders meal, which runs $52.99 and includes 16 tenders,
17:23four sides, any biscuits, and eight dipping sauces.
17:27I don't know if it includes a drink or not.
17:29This is the one I'm drinking.
17:31I'm telling you, there's Blackberry stuff.
17:33It's addictive.
17:34According to Uber Eats, if we recreate this already in Mexico,
17:37it will come up to 1,044 pesos, which is around $61.
17:43So how does KFC compare in price to our chicken chains in Mexico?
17:47Let's look at Pollo Feliz, which has over 850 branches in Mexico.
17:51At Pollo Feliz, half-roasted chicken with sauce, tortillas, totopos, and a drink costs $196 pesos.
17:58A similar rate in KFC, the three-piece combo, it costs $125 pesos, a 36% decrease in price.
18:05In Mexico, the average salary as of 2023 was around $349,000 pesos.
18:12Or $20,340 a year, which breaks down to $29,200 pesos.
18:18Or $1,695 per month.
18:22So the average Mexican consumer will probably choose a less expensive meal.
18:26Especially when over 36% of Mexicans are living in poverty as of 2022.
18:31I feel like KFC in Mexico will look at it just like fast food, regular fast food, fried chicken.
18:42I feel like it will go like cheap option.
18:46I feel like KFC in Mexico, if you compare with other chains, it will come with like USA option.
18:55Because here we have Pollo Feliz, but I feel like it's more Mexican.
18:59Like for me in specific, I feel like it doesn't feel like real chicken.
19:04I don't know if that makes sense.
19:06But when I was little, my mom was always buying Pollo Feliz or like homemade chicken, stuff like that.
19:14So I feel like for me KFC, it feels a little bit like plastic.
19:19I feel like KFC is trying to turn up to the Mexican market, adding all this sauce.
19:24Like for example, the jalapeno, the habanero.
19:27It's getting the spice, I guess.
19:29It's pretty good actually.
19:31But still, I don't feel like it feels real Mexican food.
19:35In the U.S., KFC is dominating when it comes to locations.
19:38If you compare it to the other two competitor chicken restaurants, Popeyes and Chick-fil-A.
19:43KFC is 4,349 locations, Popeyes has 3,138 locations, and Chick-fil-A is 3,059 locations.
19:53However, if you look up market share for each of these franchises, it's actually the quite opposite.
19:57In 2023, Chick-fil-A was number one with Popeyes and then KFC.
20:01You should be comparing Chick-fil-A to like McDonald's and Burger King, which it is still holding its own.
20:05But I think KFC, Popeyes, they're a different animal in my opinion.
20:09Convenience wise, I think it's pretty convenient.
20:11I mean, I love fried chicken and there's plenty of standalone independent fried chicken places here in L.A.
20:17But with KFC, I mean, you're getting a lot quicker than a lot of these places.
20:20Is it better or worse than those? Hard to say. It's good for what it is. It's fast food.
20:24KFC's menu is weird.
20:27Ever since the pandemic, they've been taking things off of the menu without telling anyone
20:33and putting other things on the menu without telling anyone.
20:35If you watch the KFC episodes that we've done, I think the first one we did was in 2020.
20:40They had popcorn chicken. That's gone. Now they have nuggets. Yeah, the nuggets are good.
20:44They had wings. Those are gone, which is nuts. Why they don't have wings? I mean, come on.
20:47I would love to see a little more innovation with KFC.
20:49I think it's maybe one of the reasons why they're not doing so hot anymore, guys.
20:52But yeah, so whenever they change the menu, it's just like, whatever.
20:55In the U.S., how you get your chicken affects the amount of calories you consume.
21:02Let's use a breast, for example, in four different skin styles.
21:06On average, the calorie amount for a Kentucky grilled breast, 210 calories.
21:11If you did the spicy crispy, it would be 350 calories.
21:14An original breast, 390 calories, but an extra crispy breast would be 530 calories.
21:21Yes, that much more. The extra crispy has 152% more calories than the Kentucky grilled.
21:27One piece of chicken contains 1,150 milligrams of sodium, which is 50% your daily recommended intake.
21:34I do believe it. I've been picking bites of chicken, and it is very salty.
21:39Let's make it a meal. I'm going to do a three-piece, extra crispy, two breasts and a wing, fries, and a medium Pepsi.
21:45The total is 1,800 calories, and the sodium of this is 3,800 milligrams.
21:51Ooh, that's a salty meal.
21:53Unfortunately, it's hard to find the nutritional info from KFC Mexico.
21:57But we find a third party site that provides that information for some of the items.
22:02First, the chicken. For the original recipe, breast is 320 calories.
22:07A leg, on average, is 120 calories.
22:10If we make it a three-piece meal with mashed potatoes and a coat, it comes up to 1,080 calories.
22:20In the U.S., our original recipe chicken has all of these ingredients.
22:25And our fries have a lot of stuff as well.
22:28KFC Mexico does not provide ingredient info.
22:31Maybe you noticed that one ingredient that we're missing is corn.
22:35Well, U.S. corn.
22:36Mexico said last year they will no longer import corn from USA and Canada.
22:40Mexico has already banned to grow genetically modified corn.
22:44Recently, Mexico also banned GMO corn from being imported.
22:48About 90% of corn grown in the USA is genetically modified.
22:53Hey, we need it here all the time, and we're fine, but whatever.
22:58The ban specifically targets corn meant for human consumption.
23:01Animal feed is still allowed as of September 2023.
23:04We know that Mexico can grow its own corn, and the assumption is that KFC in Mexico would use Mexican corn, right?
23:10At this point, I'm purely speculating, but perhaps KFC or Yum Brands has yet to strike a deal with Mexico's corn distributors.
23:17Who knows?
23:18But as of the writing and shooting of this video, there is no corn on Mexico's KFC menu.
23:24I have to say this spork, this whole thing, spork, we think it's a great idea.
23:29It's a terrible idea.
23:30All it is is a decent fork, not a great fork, and a borderline useless spoon.
23:35No broths, no soups, nothing liquidy is staying in this, so that's out.
23:39And anything you could that's thick enough to stay in this would stay with the fork as well, right?
23:44No point, just forks is fine.
23:47All right.
23:48heute-