KFC to make Rwanda debut as Vivo, Kuku Foods announce JV

June 23, 2019 in Business, Companies by Editor

US first food franchise Kentucky Fried Chicken KFC, will open its first restaurant in Rwanda later this year as East Africa Franchise holder Kuku Foods and petroleum products retailer Vivo Energy enter a non-fuel joint venture designed to accelerate the roll-out of KFC restaurants in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda. The 50:50 joint venture will manage and operate the restaurants in the three markets on behalf of Kuku Foods East Africa Holdings, who will remain the local KFC franchisee.

The JV has not indicated a specific timeline for the planned entry into Rwanda.

The transaction that still pends regulatory approval will see KFC expand beyond the thirty five outlets operated by Kuku Foods in the region. The franchise currently operates 22 restaurants in Kenya and 8 in Uganda. The five KFC restaurants operated by Kuku Foods Tanzania, the KFC franchisee in Tanzania, will not form part of the transaction. Kuku Foods plans to open its first KFC restaurant in Rwanda in 2019.

“The joint venture will enable a significant increase in the number of KFC restaurants in the portfolio in the coming years. It is envisaged that many of the new restaurants will be opened at Vivo Energy’s network of service stations across Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, which leverages Vivo Energy’s retail footprint, with more countries to be considered in the future, based on market opportunities,” the partners said in a statement.

Vivo Energy chief executive Christian Chammas, says the prospective partnership is modeled along a KFC joint venture model the company pioneered in Botswana and Côte d’Ivoire.

“Kuku Foods shares our ambition to invest in order to grow the number of restaurants and give more African customers access to the internationally renowned KFC brand. This partnership further demonstrates our ambition to continue to offer more convenience to satisfy the evolving needs of our growing number of African customers.”

Derrick Van Houten, Group CEO of Kuku Foods and Principal Operator of the KFC franchises, which launched the first KFC outlet in East Africa in 2011, says he expects the partnership to energise the remarkable success that the business has seen over the last eight years.