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McDonald’s to Add Krispy Kreme to Menus Nationwide

We know nothing hits the spot quite like a fresh, melt-in-your-mouth doughnut paired with your go-to McCafé order…and McDonald’s and Krispy Kreme have a sweet update for doughnut fans everywhere.

The Golden Arches and Krispy Kreme, one of the most beloved sweet treat brands in the world, are teaming up for a national expansion. Fans will begin spotting Krispy Kreme doughnuts in their local McDonald’s restaurants later this year as part of a phased market rollout across the country. Nationwide availability at participating restaurants is expected by the end of 2026.

Three of Krispy Kreme’s most popular doughnuts will be delivered fresh to McDonald’s restaurants every day. They’ll be available individually, or in boxes of six, starting at breakfast and lasting throughout the day – while supplies last:

  • The iconic Original Glazed Doughnut: A melt-in-your-mouth doughnut covered in Krispy Kreme’s signature glaze. The doughnut that started it all.
  • The Chocolate Iced with Sprinkles Doughnut: A chocolatey twist on the original, dipped in chocolate icing and covered in rainbow sprinkles.
  • The Chocolate Iced Kreme Filled Doughnut: Made with a light, fluffy dough and filled with a smooth Kreme™ filling then dipped in chocolate icing.

This follows a successful test at 160 McDonald’s restaurants in the Lexington and Louisville, Ky., areas where consumer excitement and demand exceeded expectations. These pilot restaurants will continue to serve Krispy Kreme doughnuts during the nationwide rollout.

“Since the launch of breakfast nearly 50 years ago, we’ve continued to offer new menu items, flavors and experiences that have made McDonald’s an irreplaceable part of fans’ morning routines,” said Tariq Hassan, McDonald’s USA’s chief marketing and customer experience officer. “This partnership is an exciting next step in that journey and a chance to unlock new business opportunities in the breakfast category and throughout the day. Our fans’ love for Krispy Kreme runs deep, and we can’t wait to make it even easier for them to satisfy their sweet tooth at McDonald’s restaurants across the country.”

“The top request we receive from consumers, every day, is, ‘please bring Krispy Kreme to my town.’ Partnering with McDonald’s on a national scale will provide our fans and doughnut lovers unprecedented daily access to fresh doughnuts and the joy that is Krispy Kreme,” said Krispy Kreme President and CEO Josh Charlesworth.

Krispy Kreme More Than Doubles Points of Access

“Significantly, by making Kreme Krispy accessible to fans nationwide through this partnership, we expect to more than double our points of access by the end of 2026. The partnership accelerates the development of our existing Delivered Fresh Daily channel, creating operating leverage through distribution density and production utilization,” said Charlesworth.

Krispy Kreme has been scaling its supply chain, building a support team, adding technology and new equipment, and enhancing field training to support its Delivered Fresh Daily expansion, which includes this phased rollout.

The companies will provide more details regarding the nationwide rollout in the coming months. So, get ready to sweeten up your day as these delicious treats make their way to your local McDonald’s restaurant soon!

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NatureSweet Named Official Snacking Vegetable of Little League

As local Little League programs around the world are gearing up and celebrating their Opening Days, NatureSweet is teaming up with Little League for an exciting season as “The Official Snacking Vegetable of Little League Baseball and Softball.”

“We are thrilled to work with our partners at NatureSweet as we continue to find new ways to provide all our families with a fun, healthy, and memorable Little League experience,” said Liz DiLullo Brown, Little League executive vice president and chief marketing and business relationship officer. “As a community-based program, we are excited to align with NatureSweet’s commitment to providing a positive social, environmental, and economic impact within its communities and look forward to partnering with them through 2025.”

As the No. 1 selling snacking tomato brand in the country and an industry leader in greenhouse-grown vegetables, such as tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers, NatureSweet is committed to supporting the thousands of local Little League programs across the United States. As part of its support, NatureSweet will include the Little League brand on its product packaging and is also launching a campaign this year called “Dugout Delights,” which provides families and local leagues with suggestions on iconic snacks they can add to their lineup this season.

In addition to year-round support at the local level, NatureSweet will also be a part of the unique experience within the World Series Fan Zone at the Little League Baseball World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, in August.

“America’s favorite snacking tomato brand is the perfect tasty treat to enjoy while watching America’s favorite pastime,” says Sergio Trujillo, NatureSweet’s Brand Manager of Snacking Tomatoes. “Our fresh produce snacking line of bite-sized tomatoes, cucumbers, and sweet peppers are healthy and convenient treats that nurture developing minds and bodies. We’re thrilled to announce our official sponsorship with Little League as ‘The Official Snacking Vegetable of Little League Baseball and Softball,’ and we are dedicated to aligning both our commitments to providing a positive impact within communities and supporting thousands of Little League programs across the nation.”

For more than 75 years, Little League has partnered with major corporations on a national level to help keep the costs for our local Little Leagues to a minimum, offer unparalleled benefits to those member leagues, support the social impact initiatives of the organization and its local communities, and provide the necessary funding and resources to support local leagues at the grassroots level. Sponsors help leagues operate smoothly, provide training resources for coaches, offset expenses for educational initiatives, offer grant programs for leagues in need, assist in supporting tournament costs, and provide opportunities and knowledge in fundraising, operations, nutrition, and safety. In short, sponsors provide access and opportunities so that local leagues may offer the best programs possible, helping ensure that players and volunteers can have a fun and rewarding Little League experience while supporting their community.

To learn more about what NatureSweet can offer to local leagues, as well as what all of Little League’s Official Sponsors can provide, visit LittleLeague.org/Sponsors. Additionally, to learn more about the 2024 Little League World Series events, visit LittleLeague.org/WorldSeries and download the World Series app in the Apple App Store or Google Play.

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FTC: Consumers Still Paying for Pandemic Grocery Pricing

A Federal Trade Commission report revealed that large market participants accelerated and distorted the negative effects associated with grocery supply chain disruptions.

The FTC’s report examined how supply chain disruptions affected competition among retailers, wholesalers and producers, as well as the impacts on consumers and businesses. Consumers felt the negative effects of supply chain disruptions in the form of skyrocketing prices for groceries and product shortages for essentials, such as toilet paper. 

Notably, consumers are still facing the negative impact of the pandemic’s price hikes, as the report finds that some in the grocery retail industry seem to have used rising costs as an opportunity to further raise prices to increase their profits, which remain elevated today.

“As the pandemic illustrated, a major shock to the supply chain can have cascading effects on consumers, including the prices they pay for groceries,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. “The FTC’s report examining U.S. grocery supply chains finds that dominant firms used this moment to come out ahead at the expense of their competitors and the communities they serve.”

“The study found some indications that higher prices at the grocery store, which continued after the worst of the pandemic supply chain disruptions were resolved, were not simply mirroring the higher costs retailers faced, but actually may be reflective of higher profits for those retailers,” Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter said in a statement.

“Since the study found that some aspects of the supply chain disruptions we faced during the pandemic may have been harmful to competition, the indications that profits may have increased during the same time and remain high may be further indication that consumers are not benefiting from competitive markets in the ways they should when they do their grocery shopping.”

The report recommended further research on continued high pricing.

As the report explains, supply chain disruptions did not equally impact every retailer, wholesaler or producer. Instead, smaller firms – especially smaller grocery retailers – disproportionately faced difficulties obtaining products compared to larger firms. Some larger firms were better able to protect their product supply compared to smaller competitors.

The pandemic also prompted some larger firms to consider buying manufacturing suppliers, which potentially threatens to make certain supply chains even more concentrated in the future. Taken together, the report’s findings reveal how supply chain bottlenecks can leave markets exposed to major supply chain shocks and that those shocks, in turn, can allow major firms to entrench their dominance.

The report’s findings stem from orders the FTC issued in 2021 under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act to Walmart Inc., Amazon.com, Inc., Kroger Co., C&S Wholesale Grocers, Inc., Associated Wholesale Grocers, Inc., McLane Co, Inc. Procter & Gamble Co., Tyson Foods, Inc. and Kraft Heinz Co. The findings also draw from publicly available data on industry costs and revenues.

Competitive Impacts of Supply Chain Disruptions

The report highlights several key insights regarding market structure and business conduct among grocery retailers, wholesalers, and producers, as well as their effects on consumers. These insights include:

  • Grocery retailer profits rose and remain elevated: Food and beverage retailer revenues increased to more than 6 percent over total costs in 2021, higher than their most recent peak in 2015 of 5.6 percent. In the first three-quarters of 2023, retailer profits rose even more, with revenue reaching 7 percent over total costs, casting doubt on the assertions of some companies that rising prices at the grocery store are the result of retailers’ own rising costs.
  • Large purchasers sought favorable supplier allocations: Some companies, most often larger ones, re-imposed strict delivery requirements on their upstream suppliers during the height of the pandemic and threatened fines for noncompliance, pressuring suppliers to favor them over rivals. In some cases, suppliers preferentially allocated product to the purchasers threatening to fine, giving larger companies a competitive advantage over smaller retailers at a time when having products in stock was a critical advantage for attracting customers.
  • Excessive consolidation recognized as a liability: During the pandemic, some retailers sought to diversify their supplier base, particularly of private label goods, as firms recognized the risks associated with having few suppliers available. Some firms buying goods in markets with few suppliers even began exploring whether to build or acquire manufacturing capacity to reduce their exposure to concentrated markets. The report warns, however, that moves by larger customers to buy one of the few remaining market participants rather than building that capability from scratch could leave the remaining buyers, notably smaller competing firms, even worse off.
  • Decrease in promotional spending: During the pandemic, manufacturer promotional spending on items in short supply declined. Companies employing the more traditional grocery retailing model that relies on manufacturer promotional spending to lower prices for products sometimes faced higher prices compared to other companies. Companies that used an “Every Day Low Price” strategy, in which producers consistently provide low wholesale prices rather than short-term promotional price reductions, were less affected when manufacturer promotional spending was curtailed.

The Commission voted 3-0 to issue the staff report.

“In 2020 our nation faced several huge disruptions to our daily lives: primarily the fear for our health and safety from the threat of Covid-19, and the contrast between those sheltering in place and the essential workers braving dangerous conditions to keep things running,” Slaughter said. 

“At the same time that we were reeling from those big changes, we quickly began to notice significant supply disruptions at the grocery store. These supply shocks were felt by so many of us, across the country. 

“In 2021, the Biden Administration launched a systematic examination of supply chains in critical sectors of the economy. We greatly appreciate the work of other agencies and the White House, examining supply chain disruptions in semiconductors, clean energy, freight and logistics, defense, healthcare, and agriculture,” Slaughter said. 

“As part of this effort, the FTC has examined the grocery supply chain. What we found was that throughout the supply chain, retailers, suppliers, distributors and raw materials suppliers had been prioritizing keeping costs low in the short term over long term resilience. 

“Our grocery supply chain had been ‘optimized’ for good times. The priorities had been to minimize unused inventory and unmet demand, minimize storage space needs, and to be the most efficient. ‘Just in time’ stocking and obtaining key products from few sources or sometimes only a single source were fast and inexpensive strategies in the short term,” Slaughter said. 

“But these systems were incredibly brittle. By relentlessly optimizing for leanness in our supply chain, businesses chose again and again short-term savings over our long-term resilience. In 2020, we saw the profound costs of these choices. 

“This study shows many of the severe impacts that supply shocks had on this brittle, ‘efficient’ system. Widespread, substantial, sustained shortages, sometimes of critical goods that American families relied upon. 

“Fortunately, the study also found that companies throughout the supply chain quickly realized the value of resilience, and are now considering ways to update the brittle sourcing system. They are now prioritizing resilience, not just short-term savings. Where they discovered they were relying on just one or two suppliers, they are now seeking out additional suppliers.”

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