LOCKDOWN LEADER: Krispy Kreme
Charity tastes sweet: one of the nation’s favourite sugar-merchants Krispy Kreme has handed out millions of free doughnuts to the UK’s NHS workers, police and fire service staff to say "thank you" for their work during the pandemic.
The doughnut dealers recently re-opened their factories to produce the glazed goodies – and have re-opened nine of their drive-thrus in the UK and Ireland to serve free glazed doughnuts and a hot drink to key frontline workers. According to a statement on its website it has an ongoing mission to serve half a million ‘smiles’ (aka doughnuts) via contactless drops to hospitals, charities, food banks, police stations, carers and other critical key worker groups, teaming up with supermarkets and food delivery partners to organise doughnut drops. Said Krispy Kreme CEO Richard Cheshire, “With this small gesture, we hope to bring a little bit of joy to these amazing people to show them we appreciate everything they are doing right now. Our mission to create smiles and bring joy has never been more important. We know we aren’t saving lives, but we hope to do something as small and simple as making someone smile. It’s our way of saying thank you to people far and wide who are working so hard to keep our nation moving, safe and well at the moment.” He added, “I am immensely proud to share we have already served over 350,000 smiles to our critical services, thanks to an absolutely tremendous effort from our Krispy Kreme staff to make this happen.” Its website also reassures the public that it has “Increased sanitisation with handwashing every 20 minutes”, while the doughnuts are pre-packed in a contactless way too. It has also created a new senior role – “a Covid-19 Supervisor on each shift whose sole responsibility is ensure adherence to the standards”. Meanwhile, a team of “eager volunteers” from its active staff will deliver surprise doughnuts in their local neighbourhoods. Customers can also 'dough it forward' – nominating local heroes to receive the iced marvels.