Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/70972
maniacal standards. When the Collectra- matic 519 was completed in 1969, "there were still some engineering problems to work out," Shelton recalls. "But it was so much better than what they were doing that we were selling them into the system like crazy." Shelton's device, says Fred Jeffries, the chain's vice president of purchasing dur- ing those years, helped fuel KFC's rapid expansion and success. "Tere's no way it could have grown like it did without the Collectramatic," Jeffries says. "Stores were do- ing about $200,000 a year in sales on average with the pots . . . but they could never have done the $900,000 a year it became without Win's fryer. He helped set the stage for that with true engineering thinking." Widespread franchisee use of Collectra- matics troubled John Y. Brown Jr., then the company's president and half of the twosome that bought the company from Sanders in 1964. He had given tacit ap- proval to a similar pressure fryer developed by L.S. Hartzog and wanted that to be the chain's standard. His biggest concern gerous, at least we knew they worked! I was mostly afraid these new fryers would break down in the middle of business." Tough Colonel Sanders pub- about both fryers was, "We didn't really know anything Shelton and his (now deceased) wife Dolly, flanked by Harland and Claudia Sanders and Norman Rockwell, in 1974. about either of them," says Brown, who became governor of Kentucky in 1977. "Tough those old pots were damn dan- licly approved Shelton's machine in 1970, Brown held his ground and warned franchisees they were in violation of their contracts if they used Collectramatics. Prob- lem was, Brown's father, John Sr., owned multiple Kentucky Fried Chicken stores in Lexington and all used Collectramatics. In- formed of his father's equipment choice, the fryer battle was over. "John Y. was not pleased to learn his father was using my fryer," Shelton says, grinning. Sanders' interest in the Collec- tramatic led to a friendship with Shelton, a relationship that came in handy when an employee at Shelton's bank embezzled "a con- siderable sum of money from me," he recalls, "and nearly drove us out of business." When Shel- ton sought a loan in 1970 to shore up his young firm, Sanders told the lender he'd guarantee it. But no blessing from the Col- www.kyoms.com [36] LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 7.12