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McDonald's and Krispy Kreme announced they're ending their expanded partnership after only six months in a joint press release shared by BusinessWire on Tuesday (June 24).
The two popular chain restaurants initially announced their plan to sell Krispy Kreme donuts in McDonald's locations in March 2024, but the donut chain paused the rollout in May as its stock plunged. The ending of the joint partnership will be effective July 2, according to the press release.
“We were excited and pleased to partner with Krispy Kreme,” said Alyssa Buetikofer, McDonald’s USA’s Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer. “We had strong collaboration with Krispy Kreme and they delivered a great, high-quality product for us, and while the partnership met our expectations for McDonald’s and Owner/Operators, this needed to be a profitable business model for Krispy Kreme as well.”
“Our two companies partnered very closely, each supporting execution, marketing, and training, delivering a great consumer experience in approximately 2,400 McDonald’s restaurants,” said Josh Charlesworth, Krispy Kreme CEO. “Ultimately, efforts to bring our costs in line with unit demand were unsuccessful, making the partnership unsustainable for us.” Charlesworth added.
Krispy Kreme said it remains focused on making fresh doughnuts available in more places through "profitable U.S. expansion through high-volume retail points of distribution and capital-light international franchise growth."
