KFC Chicken Tenders Bucket

It’s one of life’s great mysteries: What is KFC using to prop up its fried chicken in ads for its popular bucket meals? Toothpicks? Pink foam packing peanuts? Bubble wrap? Because it’s not chicken.

As we reported in October 2015, the dinner table reality for one of these bucket meals — the Family Fill Up — paled in comparison to the overflowing amount of chicken that consumers saw on TV. Now, more than a year later, the allegations at the center of a New York woman’s $20 million complaint against KFC mirror our findings.

But the Fill Up meals aren’t the only buckets that KFC advertises with images of bursting chicken. After receiving a reader’s complaint, TINA.org recently ventured back out to KFC to pick up some chicken tenders that the reader said “mound above an empty bucket.” Here’s how they appeared on the menu board behind the counter:

And here’s how those same 12 pieces of chicken tenders looked once we got to the office (however tempting, we did not eat any on the drive in):

So, we ask again: What in the world is under the chicken in the buckets KFC is advertising?

Find more of our coverage on fast food here.