An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

KFC lovers will now have to fork out more for their favourite meal.

This is be­cause some price ad­just­ments of be­tween three to five per cent have been im­ple­ment­ed.

The last price in­crease was in De­cem­ber 2023 which was be­tween $1-2.

This was con­firmed by Pres­tige Hold­ings chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Si­mon Hardy, who spoke to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

Hardy ex­plained that the price in­crease was due to the in­crease in min­i­mum wage, which took ef­fect on Jan­u­ary 1, as well as price in­creas­es from sup­pli­ers.

“The main jump for us was the min­i­mum wage as we em­ploy 3,300 peo­ple.  We on­ly made the changes on Feb­ru­ary 22. But in­evitably, a busi­ness such as ours can't, with an em­ploy­ee base such as ours, hold those prices for­ev­er. Just mak­ing a lit­tle com­par­i­son, you know. Every­one thinks that there's a lot of prof­it be­ing made. We are a high-sales busi­ness but a low-mar­gin busi­ness, on­ly 4.2 per cent of our sales is prof­it. So, we have a lot of sales, but it's not a lot of prof­it,” he stressed.

Hardy al­so de­bunked so­cial me­dia com­ments, that KFC raised their prices for a sec­ond time in the year.

Giv­ing a break­down as to what has in­creased for cus­tomers, he said, “The Munch Pack, that's one piece of chick­en and a side, went up by $1 from $21.95 to $22.95. That's a 5 per cent in­crease on the Su­per Deal which is one piece of chick­en, a side, a bis­cuit and a drink went up by a dol­lar from $28.95 to $29.95. That's a 3 per cent in­crease.

"The Big Deal is two pieces of chick­en, a side and a drink went up by $1 from $37.95 to $38.95, again a 3 per cent in­crease.

"The Boss Meal, which is three pieces of chick­en, a side and a drink went from $49.95 to $51.95, which is an in­crease of $2, or 4 per cent. The Big Bite Box, a piece of chick­en, a sand­wich, a side, and a drink all went from $49.95 to $51.95. So, a $2 in­crease or 4 per cent.”

On Mon­day, Pres­tige Hold­ings Ltd de­clared au­dit­ed af­ter-tax prof­its of $55.9 mil­lion for the fi­nan­cial year end­ed No­vem­ber 30, 2023, an in­crease of 57.7 per cent over the $35.5 mil­lion the restau­rant com­pa­ny earned for the same pe­ri­od in 2022.

In con­sol­i­dat­ed re­sults for the 12 months end­ed No­vem­ber 30, 2023, Pres­tige Hold­ings gen­er­at­ed $1.32 bil­lion in rev­enue, 20 per cent more than the $1.10 bil­lion the com­pa­ny record­ed in its 2022 fi­nan­cial year.

In his chair­man’s re­port, Chris­t­ian Mout­tet de­scribed the 2023 fi­nan­cial year as one of in­vest­ment and growth for Pres­tige Hold­ings.

Last month Star­bucks, (whose par­ent com­pa­ny is Pres­tige Hold­ings), Roy­al Cas­tle, Rit­u­als, and Blue Wa­ters in­creased their prices.

All the com­pa­nies cit­ed this hike as due to the in­crease in min­i­mum wage from $17.50 to $20.50 and the in­crease in in­put cost.