百胜中国遭遇鸡肉“围城”

    中国消费者觉得被百胜（Yum Brands）出卖了。这个总部位于美国肯塔基州的快餐王国拥有肯德基（KFC）、必胜客（Pizza Hut）和塔可钟（Taco Bell）等品牌。百胜大举进入中国，因为透明、正直的西方餐饮公司形象而备受青睐。

    但在2012年底，中国食品调查人员发现，百胜的中国供应商往鸡饲料中添加了超标的抗生素。5月6日，又一次公关危机摆在百胜的面前。当时有报道称，中国监管机构开始调查一家可能与百胜旗下的火锅连锁店小肥羊（Little Sheep）有关的羊肉供应商。

    百胜CEO大卫•诺瓦克在该公司的2013年第一季度财报电话会议上说，抗生素事件影响巨大，百胜已经启动了一个名为“雷霆行动”（Operation Thunder）的供应链评估计划来解决这个问题。这家公司无力承受在中国面临接连不断的食品质量问题。

    “百胜无法绕开中国。10年来，两位数的同店销售增长已经成为这个市场的常态。”欧睿信息咨询公司（Euromonitor）的消费者食品服务调研部门主管迈克尔•谢弗说。“我不认为他们可以糊弄了事。”

    百胜必须找到供应链问题的根源，在某种程度上是因为消费者对百胜鸡肉问题的反应非常迅速和激烈。百胜中国的2013年第一季度营业利润同比减少了41%，从2.58亿美元下降到了1.54亿美元。

    谢弗说，中国消费者饱受质量管理问题的困扰。“随着收入的增加和生活水平的提高，人们开始意识到：‘我们为什么不能吃到安全的食物？为什么总是发生这种事情？’”他说，因此，当消费者觉得百胜在信息透明上出了问题时，“不仅仅是害怕，还有愤怒。”

    百胜CEO诺瓦克在财报电话会议上表示，他希望带领公司在2014年底重回两位数的增长轨道。他已经做好了准备。

    4月初，中国爆发禽流感，消费者谈鸡色变。这场恐慌虽然并没有影响到熟食鸡和百胜的操作实践，但却引发了心理反应，导致客户望而却步。结果现在又发生了羊肉事件。

    一旦企业拥有百胜在中国的那种影响力，这些问题就会成为企业的一部分。尽管存在各种风险，但百胜需要这个市场。那么到底应该怎么做呢？

    解决这个问题的部分困难在于，百胜在供应链管理方面长期拥有良好的声誉。“百胜在华业务之所以表现优异，一个原因是在过去20年的大部分时间里，他们拥有一支非常强大的团队，”谢弗说。“没人真正觉得他们管理松懈。我现在都不认为有这种感觉存在。”

    another in China. How the company can bounce back.

    Chinese consumers feel a bit betrayed by Yum Brands -- the Kentucky-based quick-service king, owner of restaurants KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell. Yum is huge in China and has benefited there for its reputation as a transparent, upstanding Western food company.

    But at the end of 2012, Chinese food investigators discovered that suppliers linked to Yum had fed their chicken more antibiotics than permitted. This past Monday, Yum (YUM) faced another PR disaster when reports suggested Chinese regulators started investigating a mutton supplier possibly tied to the company's hot pot franchise Little Sheep.

    The fallout from the antibiotics issue was immense, and Yum has launched a supply-chain assessment program called "Operation Thunder" to address it, CEO David Novak said during the company's 2013 first-quarter earnings call. The company can't afford a string of food quality problems in China.

    "There's no getting around it, this is a market where double-digit same-store sales increases were the norm for the past decade," says Euromonitor's head of consumer foodservice research Michael Schaefer. "I don't think this is something they're going to address with window dressing."

    Yum must get to the bottom of its supply chain issues, in part, because the consumer response to its chicken problems was so quick and violent. Yum's China division saw a 41% fall in operating profit in the first quarter of 2013 compared to the same time the previous year -- from $258 million to $154 million.

    Chinese consumers are fed up with quality control issues, Schaefer says. "As people become wealthier, as living standards rise, you get this sense of, 'Why can't we have safe food? Why does this keep happening?'" So when consumers felt Yum had a transparency problem, he says, "It wasn't just fear, it was anger."

    At the earnings call, Yum CEO Novak says he expects to get the company back to its double-digit growth rate by the end of 2014. He has his work cut out for him.

    An avian bird flu scare broke out in early April, and while it doesn't affect cooked chicken or reflect on Yum's practices, it triggers an emotional response that drives customers away. And now mutton.

    When you have the strength Yum does in China, these problems become part of the business. Yum needs this market, despite the risks, so what to do?

    Part of the difficulty in solving the problem is that the company had a great reputation for supply-chain management for so long. "One of the reasons why Yum Brands has been doing so well in China is because, for the better part of 20 years, they've had a really strong team on the ground," Schaefer says. "No one really felt that they were playing fast and loose, and I still don't think there's that feeling."