sad
We pause this blog to bring you a message from Canada: A single mother has been fired by the iconic Canadian donut chain Tim Horton's for giving a free donut hole to a fussy baby. The chain said the worker was caught on video "stealing" the donut hole, which, in the mysterious Canadian language, is apparently called a "Timbit" and looks freaking delicious. Reader Chris, who alerted us to this story, explains: "It's important to understand that Tim Horton's is a Canadian national icon. That makes this story so much sadder."
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policies
You gotta wonder what lead up to the creation of
this sign at a Dunkin Donuts in Bushwick (a DMZ-esque area of Brooklyn being penetrated by the forces of gentrification) covering every possible angle of not giving you a cup of ice water. Maybe there were even previous versions of the sign that had to keep being tweaked as people kept coming in asking for a vessel of chilled H20. How might that encounter have gone? Let's take a peek inside
The Consumerist Miniature Theater Machine:
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fast food
It's been a long road but
Dunkin Donuts is going virtually trans-fat free by next month. What took so long? Well, matching the yummy-but-deadly taste of trans-fat frying oil with gross-but-healthier oils is a
time consuming process, according to the Boston Globe:
Doughnuts cooked with cottonseed oil had a bad aftertaste. The 100 percent palm oil bled right through the pastry, leaving an oily mess on Dunkin's signature pink tray paper. Anyone daring enough to try one discovered a dry, yet waxy dough with a distinct flavor of palm. Nearby employees who were developing other products in the research lab would curse at them, LeClair recalled, yelling "Are you crazy?" after the team left out batches of the mystery doughnuts for them to try.
Eventually they found the right blend and secretly tested them at certain stores to see if anyone noticed. They didn't.
Dunkin's research and development manager, Rick Golden, one of the few people in the know, slept with his cellphone by his pillow every night during the trial, waiting for someone to call with a doughnut crisis. No one did.
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your health
Dunkin' Donuts will announce tomorrow that over 50 menu items, including donuts,
will become virtually trans fat free by October 15. The donut maker is relying on a reformulated cooking oil made from palm, soybean, and cottonseed oils. Over 400 locations secretly tested the new formula over the past four months, and according to Dunkin', "we got no negative consumer feedback, and we sold 50 million doughnuts in that time." The CSPI reacted favorably to the news, saying:
"It's good news that they're dropping most, if not quite all, trans fat," said Jeff Cronin, spokesman for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based nonprofit. "If Dunkin' Donuts can do that, anyone can."
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walmart
Rats! In the Walmart! New York City may have more than its share of rodents, but one pest we don't have is Walmart...which is why for this rat infestation report we'll be traveling all the way to sunny Phoenix! From KTAR:
A health inspector said he found mouse droppings at a Valley Wal-Mart on Monday after shoppers reported seeing rodents in a bakery case.
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Consumerist
Last week, Jamba Juice gave away breakfast paste while Starbucks gave away teeny cups of less-burnt coffee. Tomorrow, Dunkin' Donuts gets in on the action with a free artery-clogging donut with every coffee purchase, in honor of Tax Day. [Dunkin' Donuts] (Thanks to LE!)
deals
