Mr Donut to bake at individual outlets
Mister Donut’s mascot and a presenter yesterday display donuts made in its Silom Complex kitchen. This was the first time its donut-making operations were open for all to view.
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The Central Restaurants Group, which operates 173 Mister Donut outlets, will start making donuts in its branches rather than a central location to cut down on transportation costs.
The new in-house kitchens will cut transportation costs by at least Bt10,000 per store per month, while the cost of installing each one is about Bt4.5 million, it said. The company has also raised the retail price of 30 of its donut products by 5 to 10 per cent as a result of high sugar prices and an increase in overall operating costs. Sucheep Tamacheepjareon, general manager of Central Restaurants Group, said that the new in-house kitchen concept would help the company cut delivery time and ensure donuts are fresh. "With the central kitchens, we required at least four to five hours to make our donuts available to customers. Most of this time is wasted on product transportation," Sucheep said. "However, with the new in-house kitchens, we need only five minutes to make our donut products available." He added that the in-house kitchens would be open to view by customers. Sucheep said that Mister Donut's three main central kitchens - two in Bangkok and one in Petchaburi province - would be shut down. He said kitchens had already been installed in 70 outlets. "We plan to open about 30 Mister Donut restaurants with 'micro kitchen' facilities this year. We also plan to have a total of 300 Mister Donut outlets with in-house kitchen facilities in the next three years," he said. Sucheep said that all Mister Donut outlets would have in-house kitchens within three years. The company opened the first Mister Donut "micro kitchen" at an outlet in Lampang province three years ago to test the market. The pilot store has seen sales surge threefold as customers benefited from fresher and better products and a wider variety of choices, he said. "With the gradual conversion to the new micro kitchens, we believe we can grow by at least 10 per cent this year. We will be able to increase market share … in the Bt1.5 billion donut market in Thailand to about 70 per cent by the end of this year," Sucheep said.
Kwanchai Rungfapaisarn The Nation
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