Eating an authentic American donut is now possible in Madrid. Krispy Kreme, the popular American donut brand, has opened its first store in Spain. It is a real “theater” where you can see the elaboration of the sweets live and is in the Westfield Parquesur shopping center in Leganés, south of Madrid.
The store opened its doors on October 2 and hundreds of people lined up and even camped out to be among the first 300 customers to win special prizes. The simplest is the classic icing and costs just 1.90 euros. Even so, the variety is there: there are chocolate, cheesecake, oreo, strawberry and even lotus filled ones.
“Hot now”: a gastronomic spectacle
The Krispy Kreme Theater at Westfield Parquesur is so named because customers can see all the stages of doughnut preparation, from mixing the dough until they are covered with glaze. This process takes about an hour and a quarter and the red neon with the letters “Hot Now” indicates that they are freshly made.
In the shop they can produce up to 200 dozen donuts per hour, aimed at a wide public with different tastes. In addition, they will create special recipes for special dates in the calendar such as Halloween, Valentine’s Day or Christmas. This strategy is already being applied in other countries and is working very well, attracting more customers who are always looking for novelty.
The iconic U.S. brand
Krispy Kreme doughnuts maintain the original recipe, which emerged in 1937 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and corresponds to the simplest glaze. It has become an industrial seal and has already reached more than 40 countries. In the case of Spain, they have replicated both the machinery and the ingredients to make the bun identical to the one that can be eaten in the United States.
Their brand has achieved high popularity and in their social networks they are accumulating more and more users, with 2 million followers on Instagram, almost 8 million on Facebook and more than 150 000 on TikTok. And, in case Spaniards still did not know about it, they devised a great promotional campaign before its opening.
Krispy Kreme handed out more than 180,000 free donuts at strategic points in Madrid, especially in universities such as the Complutense, the Politécnica or the Autónoma. In addition, it has promised a weekly dozen of its donuts to the first 12 customers for a year, a monthly dozen for stalls 13 to 100 also for a year and another monthly dozen for 6 months up to stall 300, which explains the long queues that formed on the opening day.
Krispy Kreme’s expansion
The Krispy Kreme Theater in Parquesur is just the beginning for this brand in the country. The company has invested 20 million euros and plans to install between 50 and 60 locations in Spain and Portugal over the next four years. With its Hub & Spoke strategy , the “local-theater” will also function as a central bakery from which to distribute its doughnuts to other smaller stores.
The first steps of the expansion will be to open more stores in Madrid and in the cities of Barcelona, Valencia and Malaga. This will generate more than 110 new jobs in bakeries, stores and support staff in marketing and other operations.