KFC plans to buy back more than 10 percent of its restaurants from South African franchisees as it prepares to expand in Africa, Business Times has reported, citing Keith Warren, the general manager of KFC’s African operations.

The Kentucky-based company, a division of Yum! Brands Inc., plans to expand to 850 restaurants in South Africa by 2015 and 1,100 by 2020 from the current 640, the newspaper said.

Speaking to South Africa Magazine earlier this year Warren said Africa was "now beginning to boom" and that “chicken on the bone is the protein of choice in Africa.”

He outlined plans to grow the number of restaurants in Africa to 2,100 a decade from now.

“The vast majority of KFC’s restaurants in Africa are in South Africa, but we are being more aggressive in opening new restaurants across the continent,” Warren said. “We currently operate in 10 African countries: South Africa, Nigeria, Lesotho, Namibia, Botswana, Swaziland, Mozambique, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco.”

The first KFC in South Africa opened in 1971.

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