KFC is looking to acquire more than 60 restaurants in the UK during 2027, according to Propel. The plan sits on top of an estate that is roughly 95% franchised, and it follows a June deal running the other way, in which the brand sold 17 company-operated restaurants to one of its own franchise partners.
KFC operates a system of more than 1,000 restaurants across the UK and Ireland, the large majority of them run by franchise partners rather than by the company. The brand has not published the 2027 acquisition plan itself, and the figure comes from Propel’s morning briefing on 21 September, so it should be read as trade reporting rather than a company statement. What is on the record is the direction of travel over the past three years, and it has not been one way.
An estate that is mostly other people’s
Around 95% of KFC restaurants in the UK are franchised, and the brand recruits by enquiry rather than through an open application route. The published bar is high: KFC asks for £5 million in assets and £2 million liquid, plus existing hospitality or food and beverage operating experience and the ambition to run several sites, figures far above the £85,000 mean total investment what it costs to open a franchise in the UK records across the sector. That profile tells you who any acquisition programme is dealing with. These are not individual operators with one high street unit, they are multi-site companies whose restaurants change hands as businesses.
Good to know
KFC’s published entry criteria put it out of reach of the individual buyer: £5 million in assets and £2 million liquid, with prior operating experience and multi-site plans. It is a franchise, and it is not one a reader can simply apply for. Networks that do recruit first-time owners, and what they look for, are set out in being the right candidate to open a franchise.
Traffic in both directions since 2023
In December 2023 KFC agreed to buy 218 restaurants from EG Group, taking its company-operated count in the UK and Ireland to around 268 and bringing more than half the combined business in-house. Then in June this year it went the other way, selling 17 company-operated restaurants across London and the south to FPG Foods, a franchise partner that has set a target of 50 restaurants by the end of 2030, the kind of multi-site development commitment covered in an in-depth guide to franchising in the United Kingdom.
A plan to acquire 60-plus more in 2027 would be the third move in that sequence.
Why a franchisor buys restaurants back
A franchisor acquiring sites is not a retreat from franchising, and the sequence above shows why. Buying an estate in one transaction, as with EG Group, is a way of taking control of a large block of sites quickly, including formats the brand wants more of: over half the EG restaurants were drive-thrus. Selling smaller groups on to partners afterwards recycles the capital and keeps the model asset-light. The same restaurants can move in and out of company operation more than once.
What partners will be watching
The open question is where 60-plus restaurants would come from. They could be new sites, an existing partner’s estate, or a mix, and Propel’s line does not say. For anyone holding a KFC agreement, the distinction matters, because one version adds restaurants to the system and the other changes who runs the ones already in it, and what a franchisor may do in a partner’s territory is fixed by the franchise agreement. A company statement, or a partner confirming a sale, would settle it. Neither has come yet.
