
Krispy Kreme strikes deal with kid who drives 250 miles to resell its doughnuts - monsieurpng
https://www.wfsb.com/krispy-kreme-strikes-deal-with-college-kid-who-drives-miles/article_c09a7527-8224-56bd-a570-b4c89d70701f.html
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jamesmishra
I grew up in Minnesota, and Krispy Kreme was legendary while they had stores
here. Schools and workplaces would commonly bring in hot, freshly-baked donuts
to motivate students and employees.

And then Krispy Kreme left the state. After that, it became common for
university students to do fundraisers where they drive to the nearest out-of-
state Krispy Kreme to fulfill orders. Of course, now the donuts are not hot
after the 250-mile drive, but the brand is still very powerful.

I just don't understand why Krispy Kreme doesn't open just ONE store in
Minneapolis. Maybe we don't have the demand to fulfill one hundred stores, but
only having one store would be clearly profitable.

~~~
scrumbledober
they probably don't want to deal with the supply chain logistics of supplying
a single store in the state.

~~~
disillusioned
This is the sort of calculus that's prevented White Castle from expanding
westward for so long. They just last week opened their first family-owned
location west of the Mississippi, in Scottsdale, and they claimed they were
only comfortable doing that because the two franchised locations in Vegas had
forced their supply chain hand enough that they would be able to piggy back
off of that.

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arthurfm
Article for those of us in Europe.

[https://outline.com/CaUjCw](https://outline.com/CaUjCw)

~~~
dagdesheren
Just what I needed, Thanks!

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mcherm
All this really shows is that public pressure can affect a company's policy
choices.

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grenoire
I am just bothered by the idea that the common folk have to explicitly police
these corporations to do the right thing. This kind of justice allows people
to risk bad policies just because they might, on the off-chance, get away.

~~~
Aloha
In this case, its us telling the corporation that we don't think they have
liability for a guy reselling their product.

Liability is used as a boogyman in corporate american to squash all sorts of
good and bad ideas.

~~~
socalnate1
Unfortunately it's a very real boogeyman in the US.

"The U.S. has the highest liability costs as a percentage of GDP of the
countries surveyed, with liability costs at 2.6 times the average level of the
Eurozone economies"

[https://www.instituteforlegalreform.com/uploads/sites/1/ILR_...](https://www.instituteforlegalreform.com/uploads/sites/1/ILR_NERA_Study_International_Liability_Costs-
update.pdf)

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webwielder2
Another indictment of our bizarre, inequitable society masquerading as a feel-
good story.

~~~
mikepurvis
Yeah seriously. Drop this garbage in the same file with all those stories
about communities who came together to cover someone's insane medical bills or
outrageous legal defense.

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chrisseaton
Are you being sarcastic? Or are you saying that not having local access to a
particular brand of doughnuts is the same hardship and moral travesty as
having to pay a crippling medical bill?

~~~
cannonedhamster
He's saying these feel good stories only exist because of terrible situations
to begin with. The company C&Ded him but after public backlash changed that
heart. The hospital gave a patient an $800k medical bill after the insurance
company refused to put her baby on the insurance but they magically could
after publicity. The ability to get publicity and bad press should not be the
arbiter of fair treatment, fair treatment should be the norm not the outlier.

~~~
chrisseaton
> terrible situations

Not being able to get your preferred doughnut?

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frandroid
No, cutting that guy's source of income.

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umvi
Is it just me or is Krispy Kreme really trigger happy with its lawyers? I only
have two points of data - this and Froggy Fresh.

But still, are there any companies out that that don't care to fire off petty
lawsuits when people use their name or resell their product at small scales?

Like, if I made a unicorn called "Hukino" and then 10 years later some
YouTuber used that as his rapper name or some college students made "HukinoOS"
or someone started reselling my widgets in the arctic... would it kill my
company if I just ignored them? Is there a precedent of a company not
aggressively protecting its IP getting screwed over?

I'm just trying to imagine a world where companies like Nintendo don't
instantly axe projects like Chrono Resurrection/Pokemon Uranium/AM2R/etc.
because that's the kind of world I want to live in.

~~~
chowells
I mean, there are the famous cases of Xerox and Kleenex. They're what led to
the current situation. I can't think of any more recent examples, though.
Probably because of lawyers trained on those results.

~~~
umvi
I would argue that still happens though when a product becomes ubiquitous.

Read: "Don't say Velcro" campaign

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pkaye
They are giving him 500 dozen donuts. He is charging up to $20 per a dozen.
That is $10k right there!

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zwieback
I'm happy for the kid and surprised KK didn't see the backlash coming but
there's also something that makes me a little uneasy about this. Deciding not
to sell in a market seems like a totally reasonable decision and it seems just
a little too easy to exploit social media blowback for individual profit.

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IronWolve
When I go to Portland, my friends bug me to get some voodoo doughnuts. Its a
common thing in Seattle to portland trips to pick some up for people.

~~~
lwhalen
The real pros know that Blue Star makes the superior fried pastry, just sayin'
;-)

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downwithkamdar
They just wanted a cut of the sales. I doubt he is making 10 bucks a dozen
anymore

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ihuman
If he bought them and resold them, don't they already get a cut since he has
to buy them in the first place?

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andonisus
"Shut down operations"...or what?

<Laughs in First Sale Doctrine>

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ChrisSD
By 21 years old I think you're no longer a "kid".

In any case it seems like he needed the money to pay for college so he ran a
side hustle. The only thing that's remarkable here is, when found out, he used
social media to turn it into a PR issue which in turn forced Krispy Kreme to
deal with it on PR terms rather than legal ones.

~~~
Pfhreak
> By 21 years old I think you're no longer a "kid".

Neurological development continues well into your twenties. I don't know what
it means to be a 'kid', but someone in college seems like kid could still be
reasonable depending on context.

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chomp
Sure, but I don’t think this publication was thinking about that. Call me
jaded, but I feel like they were more thinking “hey can we call him a kid to
get more page impressions?”

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stephenr
Because apparently no other bakeries existed locally and produced donuts.

It’s dough and sugar, the name on the box is meaningless.

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pfisch
Do pepsi and coke taste the same? Are all soft drinks interchangable?

I don't really care about this, but Krispy Kreme donuts taste much better than
Dunkin Donuts.

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stephenr
If you show me someone who buys coke at twice the price because they don’t
like Pepsi I’ll show you a fucking moron.

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ceejayoz
I won't pay twice the price (disregarding that the restaurant price is
probably _already_ twice the price of getting it at Costco), but I may just
grab a water.

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pacaro
FWIW I think fountain soda costs less than $0.25 a serving, the restaurant
markup on soda is way bigger than most people realize

