Krispy Kreme Case

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts

History

Krispy Kreme first opened in 1937 after Vernon Rudolph and his uncle bought a secret yeast-raised doughnut recipe from a New Orleans French chef. Vernon rented out a building in North Carolina and began selling Krispy Kreme Doughnuts to local grocery stores. According the Krispy Kreme website due to the delicious scent of the doughnuts drifting out of the building, by passers would stop to ask if they could buy the fresh hot doughnuts and so began the selling of Krispy Kreme doughnuts directly to its consumers. Krispy Kreme differentiated itself from its competitors with its signature doughnut which is glazed and served warm, unlike traditional doughnuts which are sold cold.

History (1940s-1950s)

Krispy Kreme began to grow in to a small chain store as it focused on spreading it brand throughout the southeast region of the United States. Although all the chain stores used the same recipe to make the doughnuts from scratch, this caused inconsistent taste results from store to store. To fix this problem Krispy Kreme decided to build new facility that would create and distribute the same doughnut mix to all its stores to allow customers to get the same tasting Krispy Kreme Doughnut no matter what store they bought it from. Vernon Rudolph and his equipment engineers invented and built their own doughnut making machine and dough cutter. Through the rest of the 1950s the company sole focus was on improving and building on their doughnut making process to deliver doughnut better and faster at a lower cost.

History (1960s-1970s)

During the sixties Krispy Kreme continued its steady growth as it began to expand away from the southeast region of the United States. The company also continued to constantly design its stores to look the same with their green tile roofs and their well known road signs. In 1973, Vernon Rudolph died and the company saw its growth rate decline. With the death of the Vernon Rudolph and the company unable to...