In 1964, less than a decade after branching out into franchising, there were already over 600 KFC locations in the U.S. and Canada. Sanders was 74 and still running the ship smoothly, but after months of wooing, he was convinced to sell the company to John Brown Jr. and Jack Massey for $2 million, an annual salary, and a position as the company’s adviser and spokesman. Sanders remained deeply involved and invested in the product and promotion until his death in 1980. (By the time he died, Brown had sold the company again and was governor of Kentucky.) But all his cursing and perfectionism couldn’t save his painstaking gravy.
“Let’s face it, the Colonel’s gravy was fantastic, but you had to be a Rhodes Scholar to cook it,” a company executive told The New Yorker in 1970. “It involved too much time, it left too much room for human error, and it was too expensive.” So the recipe was changed to the cheaper—though admittedly inferior—gravy they serve today.
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