McDonald’s and Krispy Kreme is the combo meal absolutely no one needs
NEW YORK - The banner hanging from a pole outside the McDonald’s on Eighth Avenue - just a block or so from Penn Station - alerts tourists and locals alike that the location is open 24 hours. In the city that never sleeps, it seems, you can grab a Big Mac and fries practically anytime insomnia strikes. I find this information oddly comforting, as if some innocent part of my brain still equates the Golden Arches with postgame celebrations and secret lunchtime jailbreaks from school. McDonald’s clearly got its hooks in me early.
I’m casing this particular location because, like other McDonald’s outlets around New York, it recently added a trio of Krispy Kreme doughnuts to its menu, part of a partnership between the two chains that is slowly making its away across the country. The collaboration has benefits for both parties, according to the trades and quarterly reports. McDonald’s stands to increase revenue and breakfast foot traffic for those who like to start their day with caffeine and a big, gooey glazed doughnut. Krispy Kreme stands to add thousands of new outlets from which it can sling more big, gooey glazed doughnuts.
But what about the rest of us? What do we stand to gain?
In preparation for my Manhattan stopover, I visited a Krispy Kreme in Gambrills, Maryland, just across the street from a McDonald’s outlet. Around 3 p.m. on a Saturday, I parked my car in a space directly in front of the “Hot now” neon sign and waited. Five minutes passed. Then 10 minutes. Countless customers entered and exited, their arms wrapped around that familiar green-and-white box, packed with their preferred sugar rushes. At the 15-minute mark, I gave up. I had better things to do with my weekend than wait for hot, fresh doughnuts - though, if pressed, it would be hard to say exactly what.
The dozen doughnuts that I purchased in Gambrills, I was told by the woman behind the counter, had been made early that morning. The next fresh batch wouldn’t hit the display case until after 5 p.m. A Krispy Kreme representative relayed essentially the same information when I emailed her: Fresh doughnuts are available between 7 and 9 a.m. and 5 and 7 p.m. at “Hot Light” shops. Or “whenever the Hot Light is on,” she added. I was obviously operating off old, outdated data: I have a clear memory of visiting a Krispy Kreme in Charleston, South Carolina, in the middle of the afternoon, instantly attracted to the shop, like a moth to a flame, when I saw the “Hot now” light illuminated.
The experience in Maryland more or less deflated my theory about the McDonald’s-Krispy Kreme collaboration: I figured there was no way that McDonald’s, with kitchens designed to prepare burgers and fries, not golden glazed rounds, could replicate the thrill of buying doughnuts fresh off the line. Well, it turns out that Krispy Kreme doesn’t sell doughnuts fresh off the line but twice a day. And some locations don’t offer them at all: Their doughnuts are delivered daily as part of Krispy Kreme’s “hub-and-spoke” model, in which production facilities prepare rounds for some of the chain’s storefronts or third-party outlets, including, you guessed it, McDonald’s. Krispy Kreme has been investing millions to expand this model.
The 24-hour McDonald’s in Midtown Manhattan has a moody, slightly modernist vibe, at least in the evening when I visited, as if the location were trying to channel the low-lit energy of a nightclub and the clean, angular lines of a hotel lobby. Ambient music was quietly pumped into the dining room, virtually undetectable amid the rumblings of a busy restaurant. The amenities ended there. You still had to order from a touch-screen kiosk and pick up your meal at the counter.
Three Krispy Kreme doughnuts are available at the McDonald’s locations that sell them: original glazed, chocolate iced with sprinkles and chocolate iced piped with cream - or “Kreme” as the chain prefers to spell it. I ordered all three, along with a Quarter Pounder with cheese, medium fries and - in a nod to moderation among the excess - a bottled water. The calorie count for my meal, assuming I ate every bite, which I didn’t, was 1,630, based on numbers provided at the kiosk. Or more than half the recommended calories that I should consume for an entire day.
My food arrived in separate packaging - the burger and fries in a special Angel Reese-branded McDonald’s bag, the doughnuts in Krispy Kreme sleeves - to make sure diners didn’t lose sight of the fact that two brands are operating under the same roof. The doughnuts were, effectively, my dessert. Each was room temperature, presumably because they had been sitting on a holding rack for hours before they landed at my table. Worse, they were beginning to assume the rigidity of day-old doughnuts, dry and unforgiving.
I could see eating one of these rounds in the morning with a cup of coffee, especially if you arrived early, not long after the Krispy Kremes were rolled into the McDonald’s. But to tack on these sugary specimens after indulging in the greasy delights of ground beef and fried potatoes is just begging your digestive system to stage a rebellion. The chocolate iced doughnut with “Kreme” is a particularly unsavory choice for an after-dinner treat. Its filling is one step removed from frosting, a loose, supersweet swirl that lands like a sucker punch to the gut.
This meal, I must confess, is the kind that makes you question your life choices. It may even make you look for a bottle of sparking water to ease the indigestion. But mostly it made me ponder the difficulty of improving the American diet when, at every turn, we are tempted by salty, sugary, fatty foods that are carefully calibrated to satisfy our taste buds. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may want to make America healthy again, but McDonald’s and Krispy Kreme have other ideas.
I put this dilemma to a pair of public health advocates, veterans who have working for decades to help us understand the politics and hidden dangers of our food system.
“Companies spout off about their deep concerns for their customers’ health and how they will facilitate better health,” emailed Michael Jacobson, co-founder of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, where he was president for 46 years. “But, in practice, companies need to maximize their sales and profits, and junk foods - like the KK doughnuts - play a major role in that. Companies fear that if they emphasize healthy products too much, competitors will eat their lunch.”
Both Jacobson and Marion Nestle, the nutritionist and author, noted how easy it is to cave to temptation when confronted with something as irresistible as doughnuts.
“We are human,” Nestle emailed. “When we see a food that looks yum, and this doughnut sure does, we don’t think about it. We are not supposed to think about it. We are supposed to go for it - and we do.”
“This is not something that nutrition education can fix,” Nestle added. “We need a food environment that makes it easier not to overeat.”
What we don’t need: A 24-hour McDonald’s - or perhaps any McDonald’s - with a side order of Krispy Kremes.