Dunkin' Donuts opens first store in Alabama

[submariner]

Looks like Dothan is the first city in Alabama to get a new DD:

http://www.bizjournals.com/birmingham/s ... ily41.html?

Further, "...Plans call for six restaurants to open in Mobile this year, three in Pensacola and the rest [142 locations throughout Alabama] over the next six years."

[Alpha8472]

In the San Francisco Bay Area, there are no Dunkin Donuts that I know of.

Krispy Kreme tried to expand a several years ago and they failed miserably. The entire company suffered after the low carb fad hit. Krispy Kreme opened too many stores and this created a lot of debt. Many of the Krispy Kreme stores in California closed.

Dunkin Donuts on the other hand seems to focus not only on donuts, but on coffee. This makes their stores quite profitable. Dunkin is now trying to steal business away from Starbucks with their low priced coffee. Krispy Kreme didn't succeed since they focused only on donuts. Dunkin Donuts is more balanced.

[Groceteria]

In the San Francisco Bay Area, there are no Dunkin Donuts that I know of.

The only one I knew of in my many years there was in San Jose, and it closed about ten years ago.

[alexh1013]

What happend to the Krispy Kreame in some Albertsons?

[Alpha8472]

I believe that many supermarkets have stopped carrying Krispy Kreme donuts and have gone back to donuts made at the store. I believe that the Krispy Kreme donuts were made offsite and delivered to supermarkets. They were never very fresh compared to store baked donuts. It is cheaper for supermarkets to make their own donuts rather than pay Krispy Kreme for deliveries. In many cases, fresh baked donuts taste much better than Krispy Kreme donuts.

Krispy Kreme was named one of the companies that will not survive 2009. Rite Aid is also on the list.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/15-Compan ... 79875.html

[storewanderer]

Krispy Kreme had a contract with Save Mart to supply all stores until they closed so many locations that they could no longer honor the terms of the contract. Albertsons scaled back the contract prior to the location closures, going back to store-made donuts in the bulk case and selling Krispy Kreme prepackaged only. Smiths had a similar arrangement in my area selling prepack only; they never sold single Krispy Kreme.

The stores received full credit from Krispy Kreme for any un-sold donuts and they typically were invoiced a price 1/2 of what retail was for the donuts. So Albertsons was selling them for 0.69 each and was invoiced 0.35 each. The way the contract worked, Krispy Kreme would come into the store and the Krispy Kreme employee would take the old donuts out of the case each night and put new donuts in. The stores figured the labor cost savings made up for the higher cost per donut. I don't think they factored in the sales decrease of selling old donuts that did not taste very good.

I guess they are still sold in some convenience stores.

[storewanderer]

The other piece of this is that Krispy Kreme has a new format that is supposedly similar to Dunkin Donuts where the donuts are not made from scratch in the store but prepared from a frozen dough product. With this, we could see Krispy Kreme in grocery stores again that would actually be fresh.

Dunkin had a store in Sacramento that closed by 2003, but has said they will be back.

[Alpha8472]

Parbaking is an interesting idea. They already do it at Whole Foods and other supermarkets.

La Brea Bread sold at Whole Foods and Lucky(Save Mart owned ones) is made by partially baking the dough and then freezing it. It is then defrosted and baked the rest of the way in the store. It tastes quite good and it is just as good as high quality artisan bread. However, when it comes to donuts, is it really worth it just for the Krispy Kreme name?

Getting Krispy Kreme donuts back into supermarkets on a large scale might help the company to survive. I still think it is a little too late.

Bags of Dunkin Donuts Coffee are now sold in grocery stores. Dunkin is making much more money this way than just by selling donuts in certain markets. I think that Krispy Kreme should move more into the supermarket coffee bean business if it wants to survive.

[storewanderer]

One of the initiatives in the Krispy Kreme locations in the past couple years has been a much greater focus on coffee and selling the beans for take home. The Reno Krispy Kreme closed without warning last year, but I remember distinctly the last cup of coffee I ordered there the day before they closed was served to be at room temperature and was strong enough that it almost seemed somewhat thick.

[Alpha8472]

It seems like Krispy Kreme's demise cannot totally be blamed on people cutting back on high carb foods. Awful service at their stores is what has driven people away.