Dunkin’ Expands Delivery Donuts

Ever really, really wanted a donut — but didn’t want to put on pants to go get it?

Dunkin Donuts feels your pain — and in celebration of national donut day, (yes that is a real thing), it has decided to expand its newest innovation in caloric intake — the deliverable donut.

Dunkin’ is expanding its food delivery program as a means to pump up sales.

Dunkin’ Brand’s CEO Nigel Travis explained, “We launched delivery in mid-2016. We’re expanding it; we’re door dashing out of the Miami market. We now have it in about 750 Dunkin’ stores. I believe that the food delivery trend is just starting, I think. I’ve talked to people overseas, and delivery is bigger than it is in the U.S. One thing we talked about in the call is integrating catering. Down the road, we’ve got plans I’m not going to reveal today to make delivery more integrated. Baskin-Robbins has just launched delivery, and that’s going into more than 600 stores in 22 cities,” Travis told The Street.

Travis also noted that Dunkin’ Brands is also working on bringing the food delivery love to some key non-U.S. markets.

“We’re testing Dunkin’ delivery in 11 markets, which right now are Bahrain, Korea, Thailand, China, UAE, Netherlands, Peru, Philippines, Vietnam and the U.K. Baskin is already in 11 markets altogether, and we have fantastic results coming out of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.”

Dunkin’s CEO was in a fairly ebullient mood talking delivery despite Dunkin’s miss on some analyst expectations (though they did continue to show growth during the last quarter). Some have wondered if McDonald’s expansion into breakfast all day and coffee drinks — both of which have boosted the bottom line — have come at the expense of places like Dunkin’ Donuts.

Dunks’ CEO does not think so.

“Firstly, congratulations to McDonald’s on their same-store sales. Clearly, they’re a sandwich player, and I think the top two sandwich players in the morning are us and McDonald’s. What I’d say, though, is our breakfast sandwiches had a spectacular quarter. As I also said, the afternoon is an area we need to focus on, but, hey, if you asked me what is more important, all the research tell us people are more focused on coming to Dunkin’ in the morning. That’s the growth area, so we were delighted with our sales and our traffic improvement. Our traffic improvement in the morning, we will continue to work on that, and we will continue to dissect the afternoon.”