How The Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Franchise Was Built to Grow

In 1937 a man named Vernon Rudolph started making doughnuts out of a small shop in Winston-Salem, North Carolina using a special yeast recipe his family had purchased from a French chef in New Orleans. He started off selling the doughnuts to local grocery and convenience stores, but the smell of the doughnuts kept luring customers directly to his store to try to purchase them. With so much demand, he literally cut a hole in the wall of his store and sold glazed doughnuts directly to the lines of people waiting on the sidewalk outside his store, but only from the hours of midnight to 4 a.m. From that moment on, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts was born. 

About a decade later, Krispy Kreme became a family business of a few chain stores across the southeastern United States, all using the original recipe Rudolph had purchased. The family later invested in a distribution plant to create the dough mix and started producing their own Krispy Kreme doughnut equipment to create perfectly glazed doughnuts every time in significantly more stores. 

In the 1960s, over 20 years after its birth, Krispy Kreme shops began popping up all around the Southeast, with more stores being sold outside of the Rudolph family to franchisees. Franchising, a concept that exploded in the 1950s across the U.S., became a new avenue for Krispy Kreme’s expansion. In 1973 Rudolph passed away, and the Krispy Kreme brand was sold to Beatrice Foods Company, a major food-processing company later acquired by Conagra Brands. 

Fast forward to 1982, when a small group of the first franchisees bought the Krispy Kreme brand back from Beatrice Foods and made it their mission to expand outside the Southeast. Almost 15 years later, Krispy Kreme opened its first store in New York City and then its first store in California. These two locations launched a nationwide expansion of the “Hot Doughnut Experience.” 

In 1997 Krispy Kreme turned 60 years old and was named a “20th Century American Icon” by the Smithsonian. In 2000, Krispy Kreme went public and later expanded internationally. The doughnut icon now has 1,000 total stores including over 700 internationally spanning across Asia, Mexico, the Middle East and Turkey. 

The company is now privately held by JAB Holding Company, a German conglomerate headquartered in Luxembourg. At the acquisition of Krispy Kreme, Tony Thompson, CEO of Krispy Kreme, commented, “Together with our talented team and our passionate franchisees, we will continue to build on the Krispy Kreme culture, values and commitment to our customers and guests.”

Today, Krispy Kreme continues to be known for its hot and fresh glazed doughnuts, but now provides other offerings like specialty coffees and limited-time doughnut flavors in its stores and in retail. While some things may have changed for the 83-year-old company over the course of its history, fans can still stop by any local Krispy Kreme and see the glowing “Hot Now” sign and the waterfall of icing cascading over each line of fresh doughnuts through the window.