Skiers on the slopes of two of Italy’s most prestigious resorts will be able to dine on buckets of fried chicken between runs this winter, as US fast food chain KFC prepares to open outlets, infuriating mountain and food purists while prompting a prominent businessman to threaten legal action.
KFC will open its first high-altitude restaurants on the slopes of Cortina d’Ampezzo and Madonna di Campiglio in the Dolomites on December 5, an initiative that the company says aims to “surprise people” and “reach places” where no one would expect to find it.
The move marks the debut of a fast food restaurant on an Italian ski slope, offering a menu filled with KFC’s most popular items, from spicy wings and burgers to traditional buckets of fried chicken.
These projects seem to have surprised everyone, including Alberico Zardini, majority shareholder of Faloria Spa, the company that manages the infrastructure of Mount Faloria in Cortina d’Ampezzo, where a KFC will be located at 2,123 meters above sea level.
“The mere idea is shameful,” Zardini told Il Messaggero. “It is absurd and shameful to imagine a fast food restaurant in the most beautiful place in Cortina. Do the people of Cortina not realize what we are risking here?”
Zardini said he had written to Faloria bosses warning them he would take legal action unless they curbed KFC’s mountain ambitions.
He said it was “a crazy move,” not least because the store would sell fried chicken within the Faloria Mountain Club, where a luxury lodge is planned to open on an upper floor. “I’m 100 percent against it and I’m not going to just watch,” he said.
The KFC in Madonna di Campiglio, in southwest Trentino, on the other side of the Dolomites, will be 1,700 meters away on Piana di Nambino, next to a chic après-ski club.
Both outlets were part of the fast-food chain’s “quick-service restaurant” product line and were a way for the company to target a broader market beyond its loyal Gen Z customer base, “from young families to mountain lovers,” said Marzia Farè, KFC Italia’s marketing director.
“We really wanted this project because it perfectly represents how we imagine the evolution of KFC: continuing to surprise, reaching places where no one would expect to find us, and doing so without giving up what makes us unique,” she told brandnews.it.
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Needless to say, with the price of ski passes in Italy increasing every year, these outlets will appeal to those looking for cheap food in otherwise extremely expensive resorts.
But Oscar Farinetti, the founder of Eataly, the Italian high-end food chain, said the brand “has no place here at all” – while placing the blame on customers. “We Italian consumers should be a little more cultured,” he told Il Sole 24 Ore. “We need to recognize our strengths: our cuisine of few ingredients and excellent produce. There is a lack of study of our own roots – we eat fried chicken instead of a nice slice of salami with a glass of chilled wine.”
Luigi Casanova of Mountain Wilderness, an NGO that works to protect the mountain environment, told Corriere della Sera: “The era of polenta and luganega sausage is over,” while Paola Demagri, of the Trentino provincial council, spoke of mountain identity being “sold to Kentucky chicken.”
Others were more measured in their response. Cristian Ferrari, president of Società Alpinisti Tridentini, the oldest mountain association in Trentino, said: “We have nothing against fried chicken, but are we sure that this is the problem that should concern us the most?
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