{"id":629101,"date":"2026-10-13T07:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T07:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/629101\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T07:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T07:34:11","slug":"paknsave-admits-its-ai-generated-kfc-recipe-was-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/629101\/","title":{"rendered":"Pak\u2019nSave admits its AI-generated KFC recipe was wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

Supermarket billboards promised an \u2018easy\u2019 and \u2018delicious\u2019 homemade KFC recipe. After inquiries from The Spinoff, it was quickly changed.<\/p>\n

It was a tantalising offer, promoted on billboards around the country and detailed prominently on the website for the country\u2019s biggest supermarket, Pak\u2019nSave. It promised \u201cthe easiest and most-delicious\u201d fried chicken was available to anyone with store-bought poultry, 11 basic herbs and spices \u2013 and an air fryer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Launched in September and prominently promoted since the beginning of October, Pak\u2019nSave\u2019s home-made KFC recipe seemed off from the jump. It doesn\u2019t use brine and contains no flour. It calls for barely any oil, and includes more than three tablespoons of salt. It also called for chicken to be baked, not deep-fried.<\/p>\n

\u201cCrazy \u2026 the lack of flour is really concerning,\u201d is how The Spinoff\u2019s resident foodie Charlotte Muru-Lanning describes that recipe. \u201cIt sounds so dry.\u201d In-house KFC addict Madeleine Chapman also seemed worried, calling it \u201chalf-arsed\u201d. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be surprised if that was just \u2026 negligence in copy-pasting a mix of other recipes,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\"Pak'nSave'sPak’nSave’s original fried chicken recipe, before it was amended.<\/p>\n

The Spinoff takes fried chicken seriously and the thought of making KFC at home was too tempting to pass up. But when we attempted Pak\u2019nSave\u2019s fried chicken recipe, our local Pak\u2019nSave didn\u2019t stock all of the ingredients, and the results didn\u2019t look right, and didn\u2019t taste right.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even Pak\u2019nSave admits its recipe was a bit shit: after inquiries from The Spinoff, it quietly amended its recipe on Monday afternoon. A spokesperson admitted it used AI to create that recipe, and said the campaign has now ended.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time an AI-generated recipe has caused trouble for the supermarket giant. In 2023, it launched the AI-powered Savey Meal-bot to help users craft quick dinner recipes; The Guardian<\/a> reports it suggested users try an \u201cOreo vegetable stir-fry\u201d and ant-poison and glue sandwiches.<\/p>\n

The KFC recipe drama started on Ponsonby Rd when I spotted a giant yellow billboard depicting a bag of frozen chicken drumsticks and 11 herbs and spices. That Pak\u2019nSave ad suggests anyone with a hankering for the Colonel\u2019s secret recipe could simply buy those ingredients and try cooking KFC at home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AA Pak’nSave billboard in Ponsonby advertising the ingredients for home-made KFC. (Image: Chris Schulz)<\/p>\n

This is part of a wider campaign targeting McDonald\u2019s, Subway and Pizza Hut, promoting home-made \u201cmakeaways\u201d like bacon and egg muffins, meatball subs and margherita pizzas, with recipes for each available on Pak\u2019nSave\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Pak\u2019nSave\u2019s attempt to scoop up some of the $1.1bn that Restaurant Brands says New Zealanders spent on takeaways in the first three months of 2026 \u2013 money that the supermarket\u2019s financially stressed parent company Foodstuffs definitely needs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s the specificity of the KFC billboard \u2013 and its recipe, which seems to borrow from a purported 2016 leak<\/a> of Colonel Sanders\u2019 famously secretive ingredients \u2013\u00a0that captured the attention of me, Reddit<\/a>, and many others.<\/p>\n

Is spoiling a recipe OK? Apparently, it is. Recipes cannot be copyrighted, and Bodo Lang, Massey University\u2019s marketing expert, admits the billboard is \u201cclever\u201d. \u201cThe campaign has already generated considerable word of mouth, both online and offline,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But an aggressive marketing campaign needs its ingredients to stack up. Pak\u2019nSave\u2019s actual fried chicken recipe<\/a> lists exacting amounts of each herb and spice it says you\u2019ll need to perfect home-made KFC, plus a three-step cooking method.<\/p>\n

Back in 2021, Auckland\u2019s fried chicken king Alex George, from Peach\u2019s Hot Chicken, told me<\/a> a six-hour buttermilk brine was a crucial step for fried chicken perfection. You also need flour, or cornflour, if you like your fried chicken extra crispy.<\/p>\n

Pak\u2019nSave\u2019s recipe suggests skipping all of this. \u201cDefrost chicken \u2026 combine all the herbs and spices in a bowl \u2026 mix in the raw chicken until fully coated,\u201d and, \u201cspray lightly with oil,\u201d is the full extent of the supermarket\u2019s suggested cooking method.<\/p>\n

Worse: some Pak\u2019nSave supermarkets don\u2019t even stock all of the ingredients. I couldn’t find celery salt or white pepper at my nearest outlet. (A Foodstuffs spokesperson says: \u201cWe can\u2019t guarantee every ingredient will be stocked at every store.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Chefs work with what they\u2019ve got, so I bundled nine of the 11 herbs and spices into a bowl, threw in the chicken pieces and mixed it all together. Then I placed the chicken in an air fryer, sprayed it with oil then cooked it, turning each piece over at approximately the half-way point, as advised.<\/p>\n

It looked bad when I mixed it, then burnt when I cooked it. When I served it to people I love and care for, that\u2019s when the insults started. My kids wouldn\u2019t touch it, and wisely so: everyone who tried it believed this to be the saltiest thing they\u2019d ever tasted. No one had seconds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Spinoff sent inquiries to Foodstuffs on Monday morning to ask if anyone had taste-tested its recipe. By late afternoon, its recipe had been amended to include one cup of plain flour or cornflour. It also advised mixing the flour with the herbs before coating the chicken.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a statement, a spokesperson said the recipe was developed using \u201cpublicly available information about KFC\u2019s 11 herbs and spices, with AI used to help determine the quantities\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As for the recipe, \u201cYou\u2019re right to flag the missing flour \u2013 this was an oversight in our version of the recipe, and we\u2019ve since had it corrected\u201d. That spokesperson also said: \u201cThe campaign has now ended.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for KFC said it \u201cadmires\u201d the effort Pak\u2019nSave put into its campaign: \u201cWe\u2019re taking it as a compliment.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Pak\u2019nSave\u2019s attempt to reveal KFC\u2019s recipe, you can feel the sarcasm dripping off KFC\u2019s statement, just like oil off a decent piece of fried chicken: \u201cIf you tried that recipe at home and learnt some things are best left to the Colonel, you know where to find us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Supermarket billboards promised an \u2018easy\u2019 and \u2018delicious\u2019 homemade KFC recipe. After inquiries from The Spinoff, it was quickly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-629101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}