KFC India launches Braille-enabled menus across restaurants

What happens when a bespectacled person forgets his specs when he visits a restaurant? How does he know what food he can order? He eventually has to depend on his friends or the waiter to order food. Now imagine how much more difficult it would be for a visually-impaired person. Most restaurants do not factor these patrons and have made no provisions for them.

KFC India is making a positive change towards this direction and has launched braille-enabled menus at its restaurants to aid the visually challenged customers with a seamless ordering experience. A first of its kind initiative by a QSR brand, the menus will be available across 500+ restaurants in the country over the coming weeks.

The brand took the initiative as part of World Braille Day on January 4. The menus are being rolled out across restaurants starting in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Bengaluru, and have been designed in collaboration with the National Association for the Blind (India). With this the brand is taking its commitment towards Diversity, Equality & Inclusion forward.

Samir Menon, Managing Director, KFC India said, "Going to restaurants and having a good experience can be challenging for visually challenged customers, particularly in the process of being able to order the food they love. We are introducing Braille menus across our restaurants, so we can provide an equal, easy, and frictionless experience to all our customers, and make our products more accessible. We are focused on our efforts to bridge the gender and ability gap with our KFC Kshamata program and firmly believe that this initiative will be a huge step towards building a more inclusive community.”

Last year the brand announced its KFC Kshamata initiative – a focused effort towards driving 2X Empowerment by 2024. The program aims to increase the women workforce at KFC restaurants by 2X and double the footprint of Special KFCs, operated by hearing & speech impaired team members, by 2024.

As part of the KFC Kshamata program, the brand celebrated International Day of Sign Languages in September with gusto, going ‘quiet’, literally, across Special KFCs – restaurants operated by speech & hearing-impaired team members. Customers were encouraged to communicate in sign language while placing orders as well as while communicating with friends and family over a bucket of KFC. This initiative aimed to spread awareness and acceptance about sign language as a mode of communication. KFC India has been pioneering specially abled programs for over a decade now, hiring speech and hearing-impaired team members since 2008.

The brand also launched the first-ever all-women powered restaurant in Darjeeling in 2013, followed through with more such restaurants in Hyderabad and Mumbai, seeding in empowerment at the grass-root level. Recently the brand also announced support & sponsorship for the Indian Deaf Cricket teams, by partnering with the Indian Deaf Cricket Association.