Dunkin' seeks to pique premium curiosity with 'Wonders' store

Dunkin' is set to open a flagship 'Wonders' store that offers premium doughnuts, including those made with less sugar.

New flavors launched by Dunkin' Korea as part of its ″Wonders″ project are displayed at its newly branded Dunkin' Wonders store in Cheongdam-dong, southern Seoul on Tuesday. The Wondernut is the franchise's take on a California-style cake doughnut. [YONHAP]

Dunkin’ is moving away from its East Coast roots to offer California-style cake doughnuts, croissant and pretzel fusions, AI-generated flavors and more at its revamped "premium" flagship store in Cheongdam-dong, southern Seoul.

Named “Dunkin' Wonders,” the shop is Korean operator SPC’s latest venture into the high-end coffee, beverage and bakery market, with the franchise marketing the services and items provided at the shop as "exciting, exceptional and luxurious.”

“Our biggest aim was to add an element of novelty — a feeling of unfamiliarity and excitement,” SPC vice president Heo Hee-soo said at a press event in the Cheongdam shop on Tuesday. The store will open to the public on Thursday.

"We looked into global trends for doughnuts and bakeries and benchmarked certain styles to create the Wondernut, a bulked up, American-size cake doughnut, a 32-layer pie doughnut similar to a croissant, and the chewy Puff doughnut that has a low-sugar filling.”

SPC Vice President Heo Hee-soo talks to reporters at Dunkin's press event at the franchise's newly branded Wonders flagship store in Cheongdam-dong, southern Seoul, on Tuesday. [SPC]

The executive also highlighted new doughnut flavors that were made through generative AI as part of Dunkin’s AI Lab project that will release new flavors every month. The first three flavors from the lab are yeast-based puff doughnuts with liqueur- or bourbon-flavored fillings.

“Our biggest focus in making the Wonders products was customers’ needs and the ways to develop unique recipes to fulfill them,” research and development team head Park Mun-hyung said. The team focused on creating and mixing different flours that would best fit each doughnut’s preferred texture and absorb less oil as well as create sweetness with sugar substitutes, he said.

The low-sugar doughnuts have around 30 percent fewer calories and 80 to 90 percent less sugar than their predecessors, Park said, adding that their aim was to reduce sugar, not calories, but that there could be lower-calorie products in the future.

Dunkin' Korea's low-sugar jam doughnuts, launched as part of the franchise's ″Wonders″ project, are on display at Dunkin's newly rebranded Wonders store in Cheongdam-dong, southern Seoul, on Tuesday. The flagship store opens to the public on Thursday. [NEWS1]

Other new products exclusively available at the Wonders store are fizzy Coolattas and a soft-serve ice cream that can be paired with the doughnuts and coffee. A total of 13 new Wonders doughnuts will be on sale.

“The Wondernuts, inspired by East Coast cake doughnuts, are expected to fill a niche in a domestic market dominated by yeast doughnuts,” marketing head Shin Su-yeon said. Wonders as 'handmade' doughnut production hubs

The company plans to create five to six more Wonders stores in two to three years. They will be utilized not only as flagship stores, but as hubs for doughnuts with handmade elements.

The Dunkin' Wonders store in Cheongdam-dong, southern Seoul, will open to the public on Thursday. [NEWS1]

Wonders isn’t Dunkin’ Korea’s first try at the premium market. The franchise opened its “Dunkin’ Live” store, which separated itself from other stores with a unique design and an open kitchen, near Gangnam Station in 2021. Its “Dunkin’ Busan Station Ramada” store, which reopened in May, sells products inspired by the region’s local specialties and also uses generative AI to suggest coffee and doughnut pairings.

The two stores also offer handmade doughnuts made in “hub kitchens” that are different from the mass-produced factory goods supplied to all Dunkin’ stores.

SPC currently operates two hub kitchens that produce doughnuts partially by hand — in Seongnam, Gyeonggi and in Busan — which are supplied to stores in a 20- to 30-kilometer (12.4- to 18.6-mile) radius. The company plans to construct an additional hub kitchen in Incheon as well as in western Seoul. The Wonders stores will also produce handmade doughnuts and supply them to nearby Dunkin’ shops.

The Gangnam and Busan Dunkin’ shops will be rebranded into Wonders stores and sell the brand’s products in November, said Kim Jin-ho, business division head of BR Korea, a SPC subsidiary and Dunkin’s domestic operator.

Kim said Dunkin’ had seen a 15 percent increase in revenue at stores that sold the handmade doughnuts. The company will further improve its revenue by innovating value chains as well as saving costs, mainly by automating the production process and increasing manufacturing capabilities.

BY KIM JU-YEON [kim.juyeon2@joongang.co.kr]