Krispy Kreme has stood the test of time for over eight decades, and it continues to be one of the most coveted brands in the world. But even though there's a Krispy Kreme store on every corner these days, how much do you really know about the company and its melt-in-the-mouth doughnuts?
From what exactly is in the Original Glazed recipe to how to bag yourself a free one, click or scroll for some seriously tasty facts about Krispy Kreme – counting down to the most surprising one of all.
Although most people believe Krispy Kreme was created in North Carolina, its story technically began elsewhere. A just-out-of-college Vernon Rudolph went to help out at his uncle Ishmael Armstrong’s general store in Paducah, Kentucky in 1933. One of the store's popular products was its doughnuts – but the Depression forced the family to sell up and move to the bigger city of Nashville, Tennessee in the hope of finding more business.
Rudolph and Armstrong opened a store on Gallatin Road called the Krispy Kreme Doughnut Company. As the name suggests, they abandoned the general store concept and focused solely on selling doughnuts. The store was so successful that soon Rudolph's father quit his job in Kentucky to enter into the doughnut business.
https://web.archive.org/web/20150708112641/http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/2003/10/22/hot-doughnuts-now-krispy-kreme-story#.VZ0I9aDP32c
After a few years working for his family in Nashville, Rudolph wanted to branch out. In 1937, he started looking for a location to open his own doughnut shop. He considered setting up his store in Emporia, Illinois, but he thought better of the idea at the last minute. In picking the ultimate location for his shop, Rudolph took inspiration from Camel – which was based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
https://web.archive.org/web/20150708112641/http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/2003/10/22/hot-doughnuts-now-krispy-kreme-story#.VZ0I9aDP32c
When Vernon Rudolph first set himself up, Krispy Kreme was a wholesale doughnut factory that sold only to grocery stores. However, the scent of freshly baked doughnuts wafting from the building meant the operation didn’t stay secret. The young businessman had passersby knocking on the door asking if they could buy whatever he was baking. In fact, so many people asked that Rudolph cut a window into the building so customers could buy the hot treats straight out of the fryer.
The doughnut shop expanded into a chain in the 1940s and 1950s with family-owned franchises opening across the Carolinas. By the late 1950s, there were Krispy Kreme stores in 12 states, all with the same factory-retail layout that allowed visitors to see the hot doughnuts being handmade in the back and displayed the delicious doughnuts in a glass case at the front.
In the 1940s, each of the mostly family-owned Krispy Kreme franchises was producing slightly different doughnuts despite following the same recipe. To solve the problem of consistency, Vernon Rudolph built a central plant that distributed a dry ingredients mix to all of the stores and installed identical doughnut-making machines inside each store. This conveyor belt contraption was called the Ring King and an updated version is still used today.
To make the signature Original Glazed doughnuts, the yeast dough goes through an air-pressurised machine which shapes it into perfectly puffed rings. It’s allowed to prove for 30 minutes then it’s fried in vegetable shortening, all while moving along the conveyor belt. Once cooked, the doughnuts travel through a waterfall of warm sugar glaze to ensure an even finish.
From start to finish the doughnut-making process takes approximately one hour. That includes 33 minutes of preparation and frying, plus 25 minutes of icing and cooling. While the Original Glazed doughnuts are a job mostly done by machine, the jelly and iced doughnuts need to be filled and decorated by hand.
For a bake sale like no other, Krispy Kreme supplies bulk orders of doughnuts at 50% off for people raising money for registered charities. Set up in 1955, its fundraising arm has assisted countless schools, sports teams, churches, charities and community organisations to 'raise some dough' for more than half a century. According to its website, in 2022, the brand helped raise approximately £29 million ($37m).
https://www.krispykreme.co.uk/fundraising-doughnuts-how-it-works
Ever wondered what the Krispy Kreme logo is meant to be? It was trademarked in 1955 after being designed by local architect Benny Dinkins in the shop’s green and red colours for the original store on South Main Street in Old Salem. The iconic design is referred to as the bowtie and has never changed.
A Krispy Kreme shop, with its red, white and green colour scheme, is instantly recognisable from miles away, but it wasn’t always that way. The distinctive green-tiled roof stores only came into play in the 1960s as the chain continued to expand. This was when the famed brand's heritage road signs also appeared.
Though it still has a family-run feel, Krispy Kreme is no longer family-owned. After its founder died in the 1970s, the doughnut brand was bought in 1976 by Beatrice Foods Company, which also produced the Tropicana, Jolly Rancher, Milk Duds and Dannon brands. However, a group of early franchisees bought it back in 1982, and from 2016 to 2021, Krispy Kreme was a public company owned by German corporation JAB Holdings. It's now publicly traded, listed on Nasdaq since July 2021.
In the 1990s, Krispy Kreme integrated into American popular culture, and everyone wanted a bite. It featured on Sex and the City, made regular appearances on the legal comedy Ally McBeal and had its film debut in Primary Colors starring John Travolta. Former president Bill Clinton even had some delivered to the White House while he was in office.
Your average Krispy Kreme store can pop out about 3,000 doughnuts per hour. That sounds mighty impressive until you learn that the bigger stores can produce as many as 12,000 doughnuts per hour! That's much more than when the doughnuts were hand-cut back in the day. A speedy hand-cutter could only make around 1,440 treats an hour.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/krispy-kreme-turns-75-a-worldwide-celebration-of-joy-150565835.html
At a Krispy Kreme store, the machine turns on at 4am and begins to churn out hot doughnuts. At a single location, approximately 22,000 are made every day. That's 55,000 a week and 16 million a year. Some of the busiest stores make a whopping 20 million a year, while the company as a whole sold an inconceivable 1.63 billion doughnuts in 2022.
The core focus of Krispy Kreme's business is, of course, doughnuts, but it also does a fine line in coffee. Outside of coffee and doughnuts, though, Krispy Kreme in Canada offers other breakfast items such as bagels, muffins and croissants. But if you're waiting for Krispy Kreme sandwiches and burgers, you may be waiting for quite some time...
https://krispykreme.ca/our-menu/
In March 2024, Krispy Kreme announced it was rolling out its products at select McDonald's locations across the US, beginning in Kentucky. While they won't be made on-site at McDonald's, customers will be able to pick up Original Glazed, Chocolate Iced with Sprinkles and a filled Chocolate Iced alongside their coffees (or perhaps with a McFlurry to dip it in). A full rollout across US locations is hoped to be completed by 2026.
In 1992, the game-changing Hot Doughnuts Now light was installed in stores, signalling to passersby when a fresh batch was coming out of the fryer. Fast forward to the 21st century and the brand's app will tell you when your local store is serving fresh from the fryer – although you can still see the light in stores.
The first green-tiled store to open outside of the United States opened in Mississauga, Canada in 2001. When the brand subsequently launched in Montreal in 2003, the Hot Doughnuts Now sign had to be translated into French. International stores in Sydney and London soon followed. Now you’ll also find Krispy Kreme stores across Asia and the Middle East and in countries including Mexico, Puerto Rico and Turkey.
Krispy Kreme has lots of famous fans. Former president Barack Obama famously visited a store in Tampa, Florida, in 2012 and picked up three dozen assorted doughnuts to give to local firefighters. Retired basketball superstar Shaquille O'Neal bought a Krispy Kreme franchise in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2016. Madonna and Beyoncé are also known to enjoy a doughnut or two.
What goes into a £1,000 ($1,388) doughnut? The costly creation took three days to make and went on sale in Selfridges, London, in 2014 to benefit the UK's Children’s Trust charity. Its ingredients included vintage Dom Pérignon Champagne jelly, 24-carat gold leaf, 23-carat gold-dusted Belgian white chocolate lotus flower and edible 'diamonds'. It was also served above a 500-year-old Courvoisier and 2002 Dom Pérignon raspberry passion-fruit cocktail. A £40 ($50) version of the pricey sweet treat went on sale at the same time.
The company states that all the ingredients supplied to its stores for its doughnuts from its mixing plant in Winston-Salem, North Carolina are kosher. Every store is supplied by the central plant so, while some individual stores are not certified kosher or Halal, as all the doughnut ingredients come from the same place Krispy Kremes are suitable for those following kosher or Halal diets.
If intense physical activity combined with scoffing doughnuts sounds like your idea of fun, this might be the challenge for you. Every year, North Carolina State University hosts a contest where participants have to run five miles (8km) through the town of Raleigh and consume a dozen doughnuts in under an hour. The event has been running since 2004, and all the donations go to the UNC Children’s Hospital.
Krispy Kreme has 1,400 retail stores across more than 30 countries. It’s a surprisingly small number when you think of how widely the brand is known and when compared to other fast food chains such as Dunkin’ Donuts (13,000+) and McDonald’s (41,000+). But what it lacks in size, it makes up for with cult status.
Ever wondered what happens to imperfect Krispy Kreme doughnuts or any that don’t get sold before the end of the day? They certainly aren’t saved and resold the next day. The majority are sent off to be made into animal feed, specifically pig fodder, while the rest are recycled for energy regeneration.
If you want to grab yourself a Krispy Kreme doughnut for free – and let's face it, who wouldn't? – all you have to do is sign up for its app. New members of its Rewards program will automatically get a free doughnut added to their accounts, and existing members can earn Smiles to put towards free fried goods or wait to get a free birthday treat on their birthdays. Easy!
https://www.krispykreme.co.uk/rewards
Despite being a thing since the 1930s, Krispy Kreme didn't open its first retail-only store until 1989. The original outlet was found in Greensboro, North Carolina, though it is now closed. These stores still exist today, though some fans unequivocally prefer to go to a factory-store where they can see hot doughnuts coming off the line.
https://www.krispykreme.co.uk/our-history
https://site.krispykreme.com/nc/greensboro
Believe it or not, Krispy Kreme once sold pizza. It’s not clear why this savoury product was first introduced or why it disappeared from the menu, with there being very little evidence of the dish aside from a social media post on the brand’s official Facebook page. These days, the chain is pretty successful selling doughnuts and coffee only.
Does Krispy Kreme still use mashed potato in its doughnuts? The fried goods famously weigh next to nothing and practically dissolve when you bite into them. But not many people know for sure what gives them their signature taste and texture. After all, the recipe is reportedly locked in a vault at the company HQ in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Carver Rudolph – Vernon Rudolph's son – told The Chronicle in 2013 that Ishmael Armstrong probably got the original recipe for his doughnuts from a barge cook called Joseph G. LeBoeuf from Louisville, Kentucky. That recipe likely consisted of cream of whipped egg whites, mashed potato, sugar, shortening, skimmed milk and flour. However, Armstrong would have altered the recipe because he was making doughnuts on a much larger scale than LeBoeuf.
https://web.archive.org/web/20150708112641/http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/2003/10/22/hot-doughnuts-now-krispy-kreme-story#.VZ0I9aDP32c
In 2007, Krispy Kreme released a whole wheat doughnut. The idea was that health-conscious customers might be enticed by a doughnut with only 180 calories, compared to the higher-calorie Original Glazed doughnuts. Perhaps the problem was that no one eating in a doughnut shop is especially concerned with calories at the point of purchase... The whole wheat doughnuts quietly faded into history.
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna17344157
https://www.qsrmagazine.com/news/krispy-kreme-introduces-new-whole-wheat-doughnut/
Now read all about the history of Starbucks
Last updated by Luke Paton.