Dunkin' Donuts

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Dunkin' Donuts

Type	Wholly owned subsidiary The Carlyle Group, Bain Capital, and Thomas H. Lee Partners
Founded	1950 in Quincy, Massachusetts
Founder	William Rosenberg
Headquarters	Dunkin' Brands 130 Royal Street Canton, Massachusetts, U.S. Phone: 781-737-3000
Key people	Jon L. Luther, (CEO) Will Kussell (COO) Kate LaVelle, (CFO)
Industry	Fast Food
Products	Coffee • Doughnuts • Bagels • Muffins • Breakfast sandwiches
Revenue	▲$4.7 billion USD (August 2006)
Parent	Dunkin' Brands
Website	DunkinDonuts.com

Dunkin' Donuts is an international coffee and donut retailer founded in 1950 in Quincy, Massachusetts, U.S. by William Rosenberg.

1 Corporate Profile
- 1.1 History
- 1.2 Facts and figures
2 Products
- 2.1 Dietary concerns
3 Advertising
4 Criticism
5 Global locations
6 See also
7 External links
8 References

[edit] Corporate Profile

[edit] History

In 1946, William Rosenberg founded Industrial Luncheon Services as a company to deliver meals and "coffee break snacks" to customers in the outer reaches of Providence, Rhode Island. His business saw success and Rosenberg soon followed by opening up his first coffee and donut shop called "The Open Kettle". In 1950 he opened the first store known as "Dunkin' Donuts", which is still standing today at 543 Southern Artery in Quincy, Massachusetts^[1]. By 1954, Rosenberg had opened a total of five Dunkin ' Donuts shops, with Natick, Somerville, Saugus, and Shrewsbury added to the list. The first franchised Dunkin' Donuts shop in America opened in the Webster Square area of Worcester, Massachusetts in 1955.^[2] To save on rent, Howdy Beefburger (a chain of fast food restaurants similar to McDonald's restaurants) frequently shared parking lots with Dunkin' Donuts shops. Howdy Beefburger could not compete, and had disappeared by 1980.

For a while, Dunkin' Donuts and its other quick-service brands - Togo's and Baskin Robbins - were owned and operated by Allied Domecq. Allied Domecq has since been bought out by Pernod Ricard for its Spirits and Wine division, breaking off the quick service brand to create Dunkin' Brands, the current owner of Dunkin' Donuts. Currently, there are 5,541 Dunkin' Donuts franchises in the United States, 79 in Canada, and 1,846 throughout the rest of the world.

[edit] Facts and figures

Dunkin' Donuts claims to be the "world's largest coffee and baked goods chain," serving 2.7 million customers per day at over 7,000 stores globally which includes approximately 5,300 Dunkin' Donuts locations in 36 states throughout the USA.^{[citation needed]} This figure compares with the 10,800 stores of coffee chain Starbucks, whose baked goods are usually prepared out of shop. Most Dunkin' Donuts stores are franchises^{[citation needed]}.

Dunkin' Donuts, along with Baskin-Robbins, is owned by Dunkin' Brands Inc. (previously Allied Domecq Quick Service Restaurants, a part of Allied Domecq). Dunkin' Brands used to own the Togo's chain, but sold this in late 2007 to a private equity firm. Dunkin' Brands was owned by French beverage company, Pernod Ricard S.A. after it purchased Allied Domecq. They reached an agreement in December 2005 to sell the brand to a consortium of three private equity firms, Bain Capital Partners, the Carlyle Group and Thomas H. Lee Partners.

In the U.S., Dunkin' Donuts is sometimes paired with Togo's sandwich shops (sometimes called Dunkin' Deli) and Baskin-Robbins ice cream shops (especially in the Chicago and New York City areas). Most of their business competition comes from small locally owned stores, Krispy Kreme doughnuts and Starbucks; in Canada and parts of the Great Lakes region, Tim Hortons is a major competitor. Mister Donut had been its largest competitor in the United States before the company was bought by Dunkin' Donuts' parent company. The Mister Donut stores were re-branded as Dunkin' Donuts.

In the province of Quebec, Canada, Alimentation Couche-Tard owns the master franchise to Dunkin' Donuts. In the United States, that company's Circle K convenience stores also share some locations with Dunkin' Donuts.

[edit] Products

Baked Goods
- Donuts (35 varieties)
- "Fancies", including eclairs, fritters, crullers, bismarcks, and coffee rolls (9 varieties)
- Munchkins-brand donut "holes" (9 varieties)
- Stick donuts (6 varieties)
- Bagels
- Muffins
- Danish pastry
- Cookies

Breakfast sandwiches:
- Egg and cheese
- Egg and cheese with ham, bacon or sausage
- Supreme Omelet (a more savory egg patty with the onions and peppers)

Any of the above sandwiches may be served on any bagel, a croissant, an English muffin or any other available bread carrier.

Hash browns

Entrées:
- Flatbread sandwiches - available with turkey, bacon and Cheddar; ham and Swiss; and three cheese;
- Personal sized pizzas - available with four cheese, pepperoni and supreme (onions, peppers, cheese, Italian sausage and pepperoni).

Coffee - Over the past several years, DD has heavily emphasized its coffee offerings and related coffee products, enough that the company added a Dunkin' Donuts coffee cup to its logo in 2003. This is due to the company selling more coffee products than donuts in recent years. It now offers several types and styles of coffee drinks, in hot and iced forms.
- Espresso, Cappuccino and Lattes - These traditional Italian style coffee beverages are available at most of its locations.
- Flavored Coffee - The flavor options are: French Vanilla, hazelnut, cinnamon, toasted almond, caramel, coconut, raspberry, blueberry and chocolate. Each of these flavors can be added to any of their coffee beverages, allowing the possibility of combining more than one flavor.
- Turbo - The product adds an extra shot of espresso to its contents. Its individual product slogan says that "Turbo provides you the boost you need to power you through your day".
- Latte Lite Espresso is combined with skim milk and then Splenda for sweetness.
- Iced Lattes - Their two varieties are Iced Caramel Swirl and Iced Mocha Swirl. Each of these drinks are made of espresso, caramel/mocha syrup, milk and is topped with whipped cream and more syrup.
- Bulk Coffee - DD sells its coffee and flavored coffee in bulk packaging for in-home consumer preparation. It offers whole bean and ground varieties in 1/2 pound, 1 pound and 2 ounce tester sizes. It is sold at most DD restaurants, online from the DD web site, and at other retail outlets such as supermarkets, gift shops and convenience stores.

Other hot beverages
- Hot chocolate
- Milky Way Hot Chocolate
- White Hot Chocolate - The drink is slightly richer than normal hot chocolate. Made with cocoa butter instead of normal cocoa, it is a thicker beverage with a slight buttery flavor and traces of vanilla. It is optionally served with whipped cream.
- Vanilla Chai
- Tea

Cold beverages
- Coolattas are similar to a slush; a rough ice chop, combined with flavors. Available flavors include Tropicana orange juice, lemonade, strawberry, coffee, vanilla bean and SoBe Cherry Citrus.
- Smoothies are made with fruit concentrate and low fat yogurt. Flavors include strawberry-banana, wildberry, mango-passion fruit, and tropical fruit.
- Iced teas, recently introduced, are a line of freshly brewed iced teas; like its coffee products they are available in several varieties including regular, southern sweet and flavored varieties.

[edit] Dietary concerns

In August 2007, Dunkin' Donuts announced plans to greatly reduce trans fats from its menu items by switching to a blend of palm, soybean and cottonseed oils. ^[3] In addition to 400 US stores that took part in a four-month blind test, the low trans fat menu is available nationwide since October 15, 2007. International locations are expected to begin using the new oil within the next few years. ^[4]

[edit] Advertising

Dunkin' Donuts is well-known for their advertising which have become popular culture references, especially in their home region of the northeastern United States. As well as being featured in many films, they have a close relationship with the Boston Red Sox and the New England Patriots, making new commercials at the start of each team's season for promotions.

Dunkin' Donuts' current slogan is America Runs On Dunkin'.

[edit] Commercials

Dunkin' Donuts' "It's Worth the Trip" campaign, starring sleepy-eyed "Fred the Baker" and featuring the catchphrase "Time to make the donuts", won honors from the Television Bureau of Advertising as one of the five best commercials of the 1980s. Fred the Baker was played by actor Michael Vale for over 15 years until his retirement in 1997. Vale died of complications from diabetes at age 83 on December 24, 2005, in New York City.
Since Dunkin' Donuts changed their slogan in 2006 to "America Runs on Dunkin'," They Might Be Giants songs have been featured in an ongoing series of advertisements of Dunkin' Donuts new products to boost summer sales. In 2006, a series of Dunkin' Donuts commercials referred to the fictional language Fritalian (sometimes incorrectly spelled Fretalian) which would be a portmanteau of French and Italian: "Is it French? Or is it Italian?" sings a chorus of customers in an unnamed coffee-shop with a long menu of non-English terms. "Perhaps Fritalian?" created by Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos with the express intent to "poke fun at pretentious Starbucks-style coffee chains, with patrons attempting to order hard-to-pronounce lattes."^[5]^[6] The whole commercial was interpreted as a deliberate mocking of Starbucks.^[7]^[6] The commercials' punchline, "Delicious lattes from Dunkin' Donuts. You order them in English", has been a point of discussion with respect to the fact that lattes, cappuccinos, and espresso are borrowed words from Italian which have no equivalency in English; the commercials, however, refer to the Starbucks ordering language itself, poking fun at words such as grande and venti."^[6].
Further commercials in 2007 more directly mocked Starbucks, with a customer ordering a "Large" and being chastised to use the term "Dieci;" with dieci being Italian for the number 10 while Starbucks' venti is Italian for the number 20.
As of 2007, John Goodman can now be heard as the new voice of Dunkin' Donuts commercials.^[8]
Rachael Ray has starred in commercials for Dunkin Donuts since 2007. One commercial featuring Ray wearing a scarf with a paisley floral design, which prompted right-wing columnist Michelle Malkin to criticize the chain, claiming the scarf resembled a keffiyeh. Dunkin Donuts pulled that commercial off the air^[9], leading to more criticism of the company's perceived kowtowing to special interests^[10].

[edit] Promotions

In early 2007, Dunkin' Donuts began running a trivia game promotion called Sip, Scratch, Score! that featured tear-off game pieces on their coffee cups.

Also created an Easy-Bake Oven Recipe for children to cook and create their own colorful donut concoctions at home.

In 2007, Dunkin' created a promotional campaign centered around a coffee cup named Joe Dunkin. Videos were created for the Yankees and Mets in which he tried out for the team, the Giants in which he was the kicker, the Jets in which he played a Joe Namath parody named Off Broadway Joe Dunkin, and the Nets in which he played a potential draft pick who performed rap solos about Dunkin products.

In 2008, as a response to Starbucks closing their stores for three hours on February 26, Dunkin' Donuts locations offered a 99 cent latte, cappuccino, and espresso promotion from 1-10pm.

[edit] Licensing

The Dunkin' Donuts Center in Providence, Rhode Island is the former Providence Civic Center. It is the home arena for the American Hockey League Providence Bruins and the home basketball court for the Big East Conference Providence College Friars. The arena is sometimes referred to as "The Dunk". The website for the Dunkin' Donuts Center can be found here. [2]

[edit] Criticism

Dunkin' Donuts has come under fire from some of its franchisees for allegedly strong-arming them out of a business at large financial losses. Dunkin' Donuts has sued franchise owners 154 times since 2006. Over the same stretch of time, McDonald's was involved in five lawsuits. Subway, a company that has four times the number of locations as Dunkin' Donuts, sued its franchises 12 times. Franchisees allege that the company's larger business strategy requires multi-unit franchisees who have ample capital and can open numerous stores rapidly to compete with Starbucks. ^[11]