KFC INDONESIA CLOSES MORE STORES AS ANTI-ISRAEL BOYCOTT CAUSES SURGE IN LOSS

Mon 18 November 2024:

KFC Indonesia has accelerated store closures and lay-offs to stem mounting losses as a long-running campaign to boycott products over their perceived links to Israel shows no sign of easing.

Fast Food Indonesia, which operates the American chain in the Southeast Asian nation, said uneven recovery from the pandemic and consumer anger at Israel’s war in Gaza have dealt a blow to its bottom lines.

The company recorded a loss of 557.08 billion rupiah (US$35.2 million) in the third quarter of this year, a 266.45 per cent slump from the same period last year, it said in a statement last week.

The hit to its business prompted the firm to close 47 outlets and sack 2,274 workers over the past year.

The first KFC opened in Jakarta in 1979 and it currently has 715 branches across the country.

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In Indonesia, several Western brands, including McDonald’s and Starbucks, have earned the wrath of customers soon after the conflict erupted on October 7 last year.

The attack on Israel by the Palestinian group Hamas resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, with about 250 taken hostage and brought to Gaza.

Israel’s retaliatory attacks have killed more than 43,600 people in the besieged territory, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Starbucks Indonesia’s sales fell by 21.2 per cent to 2.4 trillion rupiah in the first nine months of the year, compared with the same period in 2023. The coffee chain also fired about 1,000 employees since last September and delayed new store openings.

Indonesia’s main Islamic scholar body last month urged citizens to “never stop the boycott movement because the genocide has not stopped either”.

Neighbouring Malaysia, where Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has staunchly defended the wider Palestinian cause, also joined the drive shunning goods supposedly linked to Israel.

At a summit in Saudi Arabia focused on the Middle East crisis, Anwar reaffirmed Malaysia’s commitment to end the Gaza war and called on the international community to implement an “immediate” arms embargo on Israel.

“Decisive actions are paramount in eliminating the Zionist Israeli regime’s blatant and unchecked aggression, which has also threatened the stability of the region following the regime’s flagrant strikes in Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, and Syria,” a foreign ministry statement quoted Anwar as saying on Monday.

-SCMP

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