Donuts and Redemption

Donuts have been on my mind this holiday week. I blame the holidays. It is normally customary to eat jelly donuts on Chanukah, or technically any food prepared in oil as an homage to the miracle of a one day supply of oil burning for 8 days. I think my family would say that I have overdone it.

In 1485, shortly after the invention of the first printing press by Johannes Gutenberg, the first cookbook was published in Germany. The book titled “Kuchenmeister” (Mastery of the Kitchen), included the first published recipe for jelly donuts.

This new dish was named “Gefulte Krapfen”, and the earliest readers of this cookbook were instructed to wrap bread around a glob of jelly and deep fry it in hot lard. In 1532, the recipe was translated into Polish, where the local Jewish population made the stuffed dough ball into jam filled “paczki”, substituting lard with chicken fat. In Detroit where I grew up with it’s large Polish population all the donut shops sold out of boxes of paczki, every Fat Tuesday. Krispy Kreme donuts are deep fried in vegetable oil and are certified kosher in many locations.

This deep fried jam-filled dough ball recipe spread throughout Europe: in Germany this concoction is referred to as berliners, in Italy it’s known as bombolone and in the Netherlands it’s oliebol.

My personal favorite variety is the original Glazed Krispy Kreme, whose secret recipe has not changed since 1936. The company was founded in the deep south in 1937, by Vernon Rudolph and slowly expanded throughout the Southeast states. Eventually it found its way up north all the way to Canada, and as far west as California.

In 1997 the Krispy Kreme company donated many of its historic artifacts to the Smithsonian Institution; National Museum of American History.
The company has such a cult following that a Minnesota college student would regularly drive 540 miles from Minneapolis to Clive, Iowa, in his small sedan and bring back a 100 boxes of Krispy Kreme to resell. This all began when college senior, Jayson Gonzalez, decided to buy some donuts for his girlfriend and posted it on Facebook Marketplace to inquire if anyone else wanted some.

He received 300 positive replies, and started his donut delivery business. Krispy Kreme at first shut him down, which made national news, mostly negative. The company has since changed course and has now supported this entrepreneurial spirit, and in addition FreightWays joined with the Daimler Chrysler company and presented Gonzalez with a new Daimler delivery van to assure the success of this endeavor.

Have you ever wondered who really owns Krispy Kreme?

JAB Holding Corporation is an investment division of the secretive German billionaire Reimann family. Their holdings include: Keurig Coffee makers, Panera Bread, Caribou Coffee, Peet’s Coffee, Pret a Manger, Jacobs Douwe Egberts Coffee, Einstein Bros Bagels, Dr. Pepper and Snapple Tea, and since 2016 Krispy Kreme Donuts which they purchased for $1.35 billion.

The Reimann family commissioned a historian from the University of Munich to investigate the rumors of Nazi ties and to research historical records of the original company during the Nazi era in Germany. The results of the study were disconcerting. They found that during the Nazi years, the Benckiser company was owned by Albert Reimann and his son Albert Jr. who were not Jewish. However, Albert Jr. married Emile Landecker the daughter of Alfred Landecker; a German Jew. Emile was a baptized Catholic, and she continued to work for the company even after her Jewish father was deported in 1942. Her father was later murdered in the Holocaust. And it was discovered that the family business extensively used slave laborers in the behest of the Nazi regime.

After learning that their ancestors were Nazi collaborators, the family was so mortified and disgusted that they knew they had to make amends. The Reimann family which is worth at least $20 billion, announced this month the creation of the new Alfred Landecker Foundation that will distribute 5 million euros to those forced to work for the family’s factories. Eight hundred former slave laborers have already been identified which include non-Jewish Russian civilians and French prisoners of war.

An additional 5 million euros will be donated to the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany which will distribute the funds to 200 nonprofit organizations in order to assist aging and impoverished survivors.

In addition; 25 million euros will be earmarked for educational programs dealing with the Holocaust and advocating democracy, on an annual basis.

We can all agree that an occasional donut is probably ok. But supporting Krispy Kreme by eating lots of their donuts like I did this holiday is definitely not a good thing in terms of a healthy snack.

However, it is commendable that the owners of Krispy Kreme are researching and remembering the atrocities of the Holocaust. It is even more commendable that they are providing humanitarian assistance for survivors of the Holocaust and former forced labor victims of World War II.

Jake Tewel holds a Masters Degree from YU. He has been a wine seller, caterer and a million miler for the past 15 years. Jake is a best friend, great neighbor, your go to travel person, father, grandfather and loving husband. He is now focusing his efforts on heart healthy nutrition, exercise and travel.