>>> The News: JAY KAY!
By staff writer Amir Blumenfeld
March 23, 2005

The real news (for boring people)
The breakdown (for college people)

Krispy Kreme to Close Wal-Mart Stores

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc. is scrapping its test of bakery stores in Wal-Mart stores.

Now what donuts will fat Southerners eat while shopping for discount sweatshirts? First the War in Iraq and now this…. I am NEVER gonna stop worrying this year.

The beleaguered Winston-Salem, N.C., doughnut maker will close five outlets in Wal-Mart stores around the United States as of Sunday, and the sixth in April, according to a company spokeswoman.

God bless that sixth store and their one month of extra fresh donuts! Wait a minute… expires March 3rd?!?! THAT WASN'T A GREEN FROSTING DONUT!! THAT WASN'T A GREEN FROSTING DONUT AT ALL!!!

“It was a test, and we've made a decision right now that the concept is not viable, but we're going to continue our great relationship with Wal-Mart with our wholesale business,” spokeswoman Amy Hughes said Wednesday.

Wholesale, meaning you can still purchase a vat of glaze for 69 cents. And that's good eatin'!

A representative for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said the retailer doesn't comment on relationships with tenants or suppliers.

Wal-Mart doesn't kiss and tell do they? Well I heard that Wal-Mart felt up Fritos-Lay in the back of their store, and when Wal-Mart tried to get to third, Fritos-Lay was all “Naw-uh! Naw you didn't!” At least that's what Peggy-Sue from home room told me. Are you gonna finish that glaze?

Stores in Wal-Marts in Charlotte, Mount Airy, N.C., Virginia Beach, Va., Maysville, Ky., and Garland, Texas will close as of Sunday, Hughes said. A store in Hutchinson, Kansas, will close in April.

Ah yes. So that's where Kansas got the license plate slogan: “Kansas: We're even fatter than Kentucky!”

Asked if the closings are related to Krispy Kreme's financial situation, Hughes said, “That has nothing to do with it.” She also said they are unrelated to Dunkin' Donut's move, announced in May, to open its own shops within 10 Wal-Mart stores. Dunkin' Donuts is a unit of Allied Domecq PLC, a British spirits and wine company.

“It has nothing to do with finance! We are simply closing the store because a Ouija board told us to. That's it. Anybody assuming this was a “financial decision” is clearly wrong.

Krispy Kreme began rolling out stores with “Hot Doughnuts Now” signs in Wal-Marts in September 2003 as a test.

Signs will now read either: “Cold Doughnuts Now” or “Hot Doughnuts Then.”

Company executives a year ago said the first test store, in Mount Airy, N.C., was generating about $20,000 a week in sales, on average. That was well below the company's average at the time of around $69,000 but profitable, given the lower startup and operating costs, executives said then.

Hahahaha. 69 thousand. That's a sexual move where some guy eats out a girl while she gives him head. Right?

Krispy Kreme has more than 400 company-owned and franchise stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, South Korea and Britain.

I hear the Krispy Kreme in Mexico offers a Dessert Burrito with Chipotle Filling. No, I didn't. I just made that up. My whole life is a fucking joke. My God I'm so alone.

Krispy Kreme shares rose 28 cents, or 3.2 percent, to close at $9.15 Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange. On a 52-week basis, there was a low of $5.05 on Feb. 24 and a high of $35.35 last March 30.

But Krispy Kreme vows that these numbers have nothing to do with finance and anybody who thinks so is completely misguided. “Also,” Krispy Kreme added, “What does ‘finance' mean?” Budweiser spokespeople then asked, “Can you get ‘finance loss' from a Wal-Mart foosball table?”

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