Haddon Salt
[1] "I came over not simply to start a restaurant, but to introduce America to fish and chips, as grandiose as that dream sounds now".
Salt explained the brand's failure, saying "They started lowering the standards of the quality of the fish, and so the [sales] volumes of the restaurants went down and people stopped buying franchises, so that was the end of it.
In 2016, Salt said "My parents turned to Christian Science and its primitive healing philosophy by which you could measure the outcome.
At 16, he worked at "Salt's Sea Fresh", his father's fish and chip store at the family's seaside resort[7] in Skegness, Lincolnshire, England where he saw enthusiastic acceptance and demand for fish and chips from United States Air Force airmen stationed at nearby RAF East Kirkby station.
After three years and a series of odd jobs, they returned to Skegness where Salt went back to work, helping at his father's fish and chips shop.
[10] In 1960, Salt purchased a restaurant in England, sold it in 1964, and emigrated with his wife and three children to California with $10,000.
[3] "Frankly, our family and friends thought my wife Grace and I a bit daft to chuck it all for a dream".
[2] Salt entered the restaurant business in America, first purchasing the Griddle, an existing 24-hour diner located at Fourth and Tamalpais in San Rafael, California in November 1964.
It was reported that the Salts planned "to establish a number of franchised shops in various locations throughout the Bay Area and perhaps even more extensively".
Salt was the sole United States and Canadian sales agent for Henry Nuttall fish and chip frying ranges and related equipment.
We import our stoves from Henry Nuttall in Britain, a master at the art of making frying ranges".
[2] The Nuttall ranges used by Salt were 18 feet long and had glass fronts so patrons could watch their orders being cooked.
Salt reasoned "A man may walk away from a $5,000 investment if things get tough, but he probably has $10,000 only once in his life and he'll fight to protect it".
In addition to a franchise fee, Salt required franchisees to purchase all of their raw products and equipment from him.
He said he "must be frank in stating that there might be a wait for an order simply because we fry on request to assure the product is piping hot which is the only way to enjoy fish and chips".
[17][18] Salt spent "several weeks" training each owner at the outset of learning his franchise operation.
After branding the franchise using his identity, he immediately started using area newspaper and radio advertising to build awareness and demand for his fish and chips.
[2] Salt wanted his stores to remind American customers of England but made concessions in their design.
[27] Salt discussed the reasons and process involved in his 1968 decision to sell his business to KFC in The New York Times film documentary The King of Fish and Chips: We were opening stores everywhere.
When the deal was consummated, KFC said they planned to have 1,000 combined company-owned and franchised H. Salt Fish & Chips stores by 1973.
[21] KFC newspaper ads offered franchise opportunities, saying: Haddon Salt, Esq., an urbane 41-year-old Englishman, who, with his Savile Row suits, trim bowler, and tightly furled umbrella, cuts the perfect figure of a proper English gentleman.In the copy, Salt claimed, "I'll do for English fish and chips what the colonel did for chicken".
Salt would "continue as president of the company, which will be a Kentucky Fried Chicken subsidiary" and "will perform a publicity role like other corporate figureheads".
Comparing KFC's having built 2,400 units since 1957, the company claimed they had "invested capital in opening and operating over 400 [H.Salt Esq.]
Brown sold the company to the Connecticut-based Heublein, a packaged food and liquor corporation, for $285 million (equivalent to $2,144,174,199 in 2023).
Salt's contract as "chairman of the fish and chips division" would be assumed by Hueblein according to the sale agreement.
The stores sold H. Salt Fish & Chips as well as Kentucky Fried Chicken, hamburgers, milkshakes, soft ice cream, and "tasty sandwiches created by Colonel Sanders".
They started lowering the standards of the quality of the fish, and so the (sales) volumes of the restaurants went down and people stopped buying franchises, so that was the end of it.
[38] In the 1970s, Salt developed an interest in cutting horses, becoming a breeder, rider, and supporter of the breed and associated equine activities in California and across America.
[36] Salt suggested propagation practices in use at the time in Iceland would allow farming codfish "on a sustained yield basis".
Salt preferred the practice of line-caught fishing from smaller boats which allowed for faster freezing of a catch.
