Meet the Man Behind Dunkin’s Wild Ideas for Donuts
Why the donut chain now sells guacamole
“I think everyone imagines that the Dunkin’ test kitchen is like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory,’’ says Jeff Miller, the executive chef and vice president of product innovation at Dunkin’ Brands.
“Like you go in there and there’s tubes of donut icing running everywhere,’’ he adds, pausing for a second. “I kind of wish it was like that.’’
With more than 11,300 locations in 37 countries Dunkin’ Donuts is now a global donut empire that little resembles the original family-owned shop that opened 65 years ago in Quincy. What began with a former factory worker selling coffee for a dime has become a profit factory that last year pulled in nearly $10 billion in sales.
Like a Silicon Valley giant, it tests relentlessly and builds innovation into a routine.
“Kind of like what tech companies do where we allot the team about 10 percent of their time to come up with completely new ideas,’’ said Miller. “We’re tracking market trends and flavor trends and thinking about that in terms of ‘How do we turn that into something our customers would really respond to?’’’
Take the case of the Canton-based company’s cheesecake-stuffed donuts. In the creation process, Miler said he and his culinary team went out and bought 25 different cheesecakes to taste test.
“It’s a terrible job right?’’ said Miller. “We ate them all and we said, ‘What really about cheesecake do we want to bring to the customer?’’’
Miller says they tried seven different cheesecake flavors, including a caramel and a peanut butter variety that didn’t make it, despite being “great.’’ Ultimately, Oreo and raspberry cheesecake donuts won out. They’re available now.
To test their summer iced coffee flavors, Miller’s team took all of the ice cream flavors from Baskin-Robbins, which is also owned by Dunkin Brands. The team broke them down into basic flavor “attributes’’ and looked at how they tasted in coffee.
“So Rocky Road is chocolate, chocolate chunks, almonds and marshmallow,’’ said Miller. He said that chocolate, caramel and nut flavors are the best-selling coffee flavors. Market research trumps subjectivity. He has a sweet spot for a “Very Berry Strawberry’’ flavor, but it has never been released.
“It actually works really well with coffee,’’ Miller says.
Occasionally a surprising product makes it through, like guacamole — not exactly a staple of donut shops. Dunkin’ Donuts released it nationwide last week. For now it’s only featured on the bacon guacamole breakfast flatbread sandwich, but the company confirmed guacamole can be added to any sandwich for 50 cents.
The addition of guacamole is unrelated to Dunkin’s recent expansion into California, the land of avocados.
But there are some regional menu items based on market research, including a chicken biscuit in the southeast. The company is testing chocolate chip donuts in Providence, a buffalo chicken sandwich in Miami, and a Boston cream croissant donut in New Jersey.
One item you can’t get domestically is a croistrami — a croissant pastrami sandwich — available in South America and Europe.
Dunkin’s may have managed a blueberry waffle breakfast sandwich, but there’s one product it has yet to crack: the elusive bacon donut. It is as tempting and elusive to Dunkin’ Donuts as the watch once was to Apple. Dunkin’s recently tested it in Providence.
The solution may be in China.
The pork floss donut — Miller’s favorite international Dunkin’ Donuts menu item — is a sweet-and-savory combo only available in the People’s Republic. Pork floss, or rousong, is a dried, shredded pork that is popularly used in Asian cuisine as a filling. Dunkin’s puts it on top of an iced, yeast donut.
“It’s kind of like bacon and the bacon donut is very popular here,’’ said Miller, “It sounds far out, but it’s not that far out.’’
Dunkin Donuts through the years
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