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Haddon Norman Salt (born 18 October 1928) is a British–American businessman, best known for founding the fast food chain H. Salt Esq. Fish & Chips and for acting as that company's brand ambassador, spokesman, and symbol. Salt followed his father and grandfather's careers, becoming a master fish cook and purveyor of fish and chips.
"I came over not simply to start a restaurant, but to introduce America to fish and chips, as grandiose as that dream sounds now". When Salt arrived in America in 1964, Britons ate an average of 100 pounds of fish per year, while Americans ate only 10 pounds per year. Salt said, "The way some of it is handled, I can see why".
Salt opened his first fish and chips shop in California in 1965. His business was acquired by the Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation in 1969. The sale made Salt the third largest stockholder in KFC, at the time the world's largest fast-food company.
KFC was not successful in the large-scale expansion of the H. Salt Esq. chain and sold the brand and business in 1972. 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. And it didn't grow anymore."
Salt left the company in 1972. (Full article...)