Diet Creeps Fuck With Krispy Kreme's Share Price



from the Globe & Mail :

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc. shed $570-million (U.S.) in market value yesterday after warning that a diet craze is hurting sales of the superfat, fried-carbohydrate treats that won it a cult following.

For the first time since its spectacular stock market launch four years ago, the North Carolina company lowered one of its own announced profit targets, trimming about 10 per cent off expectations for the year.

A popular aversion to starch and sugar has been particularly bad for grocery store sales of packaged doughnuts, it said.

Summing up the company's problem, chief executive officer Scott Livengood told analysts that it was "hard if not impossible to predict whether this low-carb phenomenon is a passing fad or a fundamental, lasting change."

Adjusted for subsequent splits, the stock went from $5.25 in 2000 to almost $50 last summer before sliding. It fell $9.29 yesterday to close at $22.51 on the New York Stock exchange.

Just beautiful. The tobacco industry has wiped out more people than Hitler, Pol Pot and Ken Lower's breath combined, and even in the face of heavy anti-smoke legislation and massive settlements, those fuckers are still making money. Krispy Kreme, on the other hand, has never been about anything other than happiness, joy and understanding in an ugly ugly world. And what's with all the hate speech being thrown at trans fat? In the year 2004 isn't there a more enlightened thing to call them?

As crash diets go, hardcore bulimia is way cooler and doesn't necessarily preclude a visit to Krispy Kreme.

I'm not looking forward to telling Raul Mondesi where I invested his money.

Posted: Sat - May 8, 2004 at 05:41 PM      

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