The McDonald’s-Krispy Kreme Collaboration Makes Sense Since They Both Stole Their Recipes

Like high-cholesterol Avengers, McDonald’s and Krispy Kreme are teaming up to provide way better pastries under the golden arches by 2026, and when you think about it, the partnership makes a lot of sense. McDonald’s and Krispy Kreme have so much in common: Both restaurants are coated in a fine layer of grease and sugar, both are really only good at the specific times of day their devotees have figured out the food is fresh and both are founded on stolen recipes.

The chicanery of McDonald’s “founder” Ray Kroc is well-documented, but in case you missed out on the movie featuring the best Batman stiffing Ron Swanson and Twisty the Clown, the short story is he noticed the success of the McDonald brothers’ burger restaurant, went into business with them and then stole it out from under them. The “well, technically” story is that he did buy them out, but he reneged on a bunch of their agreements, such as royalties and the promise to let them keep their flagship restaurant. In fact, Kroc bragged that he “ran ‘em out of business.” Happy meals are decidedly not what he was serving.

Krispy Kreme’s origin story is lesser known, at least in part because it veers substantially from the official one. Well into the 2000s, its website claimed the brand began when founder Vernon Rudolph bought a doughnut shop from a French chef in the 1930s, including the chef’s proprietary doughnut recipe, long after it was known that that was bullshit. Rudolph actually got the recipe from his uncle, who got it from a much less fancy Louisville barge cook named Joseph LeBeouf. According to Rudolph’s son, “LeBoeuf would have been flattered to share it — no secret transactions involved,” but LeBoeuf died shortly before he was identified as the recipe’s creator, so we can’t confirm that he didn’t want millions of doughnut dollars.

Rudolph’s uncle used the recipe to bake doughnuts sold at his general store, where Rudolph worked for him. Eventually, they gave up the general store to focus exclusively on the popular doughnuts, and that’s how Krispy Kreme was born. 

Incidentally, this original recipe of LeBoeuf is believed to have consisted of “fluffed egg whites, mashed potatoes, sugar, shortening and skim milk that was chilled and mixed with flour and then fried and covered in glaze,” so let’s hope they’ve updated it a little since then. A mashed potato doughnut is a food consumed strictly by people who have already consumed earthier things — which, to be fair, is also Krispy Kreme’s target market.