{
 "id": "the-franchise-that-vanished",
 "type": "story",
 "names": {
  "name": "The franchise that vanished",
  "aliases": [
   "Spudnut"
  ],
  "sort": "franchise that vanished"
 },
 "region": [
  "us"
 ],
 "facets": {
  "kind": "essay"
 },
 "text": {
  "what": "Between 1940 and 1968 a Salt Lake City potato-flour company put more than three hundred shops on American streets. The company is gone. Some of the shops are not."
 },
 "sections": [
  {
   "h": "A dry mix is a business model",
   "text": "Al and Bob Pelton ate potato doughnuts in Germany and worked their way from wheat dough flavoured with potato water, through mashed potato, to a dry potato mix. The mix is the invention: it made the recipe shippable, and a shippable recipe can be franchised. They coined the word spudnut and opened in 1940."
  },
  {
   "h": "The numbers",
   "text": "Franchising began in 1946. In 1948 a new franchisee paid $50 plus the cost of a hundred sacks of spudnut flour. By 1952 a franchise cost $1,750 plus equipment, about $5,000 all in — roughly $109,550 in 2024 dollars — and the Peltons were on the cover of Mechanix Illustrated under the headline \"Their Potatoes Make Dough\".\n\nOver 200 shops by 1948. More than 225 in 31 states by mid-1949. More than 300 in 38 states by 1954. 315 by 1968. The advertising ran \"Coast to coast… Alaska to Mexico\", with a cartoon Mr. Spudnut in parades."
  },
  {
   "h": "What is left",
   "text": "The parent company no longer exists. Independent shops still trade under the name.\n\n*Inference —* that is the most common shape of survival in this trade. Daylight Donuts, the Tulsa mix company founded in 1954, still supplies roughly 950 independently owned shops; if it went tomorrow the signs would stay up and the shops would keep frying. The infrastructure of American donuts is mostly flour suppliers and second-hand equipment, and both outlive their companies."
  }
 ],
 "kin": [
  {
   "to": "spudnut",
   "as": "The donut.",
   "rel": "donut"
  },
  {
   "to": "tulsa-mix-shop",
   "as": "The model.",
   "rel": "style"
  },
  {
   "to": "daylight-donuts",
   "as": "The one still running.",
   "rel": "org"
  },
  {
   "to": "mr-spudnut",
   "as": "The mascot.",
   "rel": "art"
  },
  {
   "to": "the-sign-outlives-the-owner",
   "as": "What that leaves on the street.",
   "rel": "story"
  }
 ],
 "sources": [
  "s:wp-spudnut-shops",
  "s:wp-daylight-donuts"
 ],
 "provenance": {
  "default": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-spudnut-shops"
  },
  "fields": {
   "sections[2].text": {
    "tier": "inference"
   }
  }
 },
 "schema": 1,
 "confidence": "high",
 "updated": "2026-09-16",
 "blurb": "Between 1940 and 1968 a Salt Lake City potato-flour company put more than three hundred shops on American streets. The company is gone. Some of the shops are not.",
 "region_terms": [
  {
   "key": "us",
   "name": "The United States",
   "state": null,
   "note": "use when a node belongs to the whole country"
  }
 ],
 "kin_out": [
  {
   "to": "spudnut",
   "type": "donut",
   "name": "Spudnut",
   "as": "The donut.",
   "rel": "donut"
  },
  {
   "to": "tulsa-mix-shop",
   "type": "style",
   "name": "The mix-and-sign shop",
   "as": "The model.",
   "rel": "style"
  },
  {
   "to": "daylight-donuts",
   "type": "org",
   "name": "Daylight Donuts",
   "as": "The one still running.",
   "rel": "org"
  },
  {
   "to": "mr-spudnut",
   "type": "art",
   "name": "Mr. Spudnut and the mascots",
   "as": "The mascot.",
   "rel": "art"
  },
  {
   "to": "the-sign-outlives-the-owner",
   "type": "story",
   "name": "The sign outlives the owner",
   "as": "What that leaves on the street.",
   "rel": "story"
  }
 ],
 "source_list": [
  {
   "id": "s:wp-spudnut-shops",
   "kind": "web",
   "title": "Spudnut Shops — Wikipedia",
   "publisher": "Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spudnut_Shops",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:wp-daylight-donuts",
   "kind": "web",
   "title": "Daylight Donuts — Wikipedia",
   "publisher": "Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_Donuts",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0"
  }
 ],
 "tiers": {
  "text.what": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-spudnut-shops"
  }
 },
 "primary_image": null,
 "tag_facts": [],
 "recognition_facts": [],
 "acclaim": 0,
 "kin_in": [
  {
   "from": "spudnut",
   "type": "donut",
   "name": "Spudnut",
   "as": "How a 300-shop system leaves independent shops behind.",
   "rel": "story"
  }
 ]
}