Krispy Kreme was founded by Vernon Rudolph (1915–1973), who bought a yeast-raised recipe from a New Orleans chef, rented a building in 1937 in what is now historic Old Salem in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and began selling to local grocery stores.

[5] The shop did so well that Vernon's father, Plumie, also left Kentucky and moved to Nashville to help sell doughnuts.

In 1976, Krispy Kreme Doughnut Corporation became a wholly owned subsidiary of Beatrice Foods of Chicago, Illinois.

[8] On May 17, 2001, Krispy Kreme switched to the New York Stock Exchange, with the ticker symbol KKD, which it carried until its private acquisition.

The market initially considered the company as having "solid fundamentals, adding stores at a rapid clip and showing steadily increasing sales and earnings.

This explanation was viewed with skepticism by analysts, as "blaming the Atkins diet for disappointing earnings carried a whiff of desperation",[9] and as rival doughnut chain, Dunkin' Donuts, has not suffered from the low-carb trend over the same compared period.

Krispy Kreme also had supermarkets and gas stations carry their doughnuts, which soon contributed up to half of the chain's sales, creating further market saturation as well as increasing competition to its franchisees.

[9] Krispy Kreme has been accused of channel stuffing by franchisees, whose stores reportedly "received twice their regular shipments in the final weeks of a quarter so that headquarters could make its numbers".

[10] A report released in August 2005 singled out then-CEO Livengood and then-COO John W. Tate to blame for the accounting scandals, although it did not find that the executives committed intentional fraud.

[13] On March 4, 2009, the SEC issued a cease and desist order against Krispy Kreme for its actions inflating their revenues and engaging in illicit activities regarding the purchasing of its own stores to prop up revenues and setting up mechanisms to guarantee that it beat earnings estimates by $0.01, which eventually resulted in Krispy Kreme reducing net income over two years by over $10.5 million.

[16] Also in 2010, Krispy Kreme Express, a delivery service for businesses, began testing at the Battleground Avenue location in Greensboro, North Carolina.

[19] On August 25, 2020, the first Krispy Kreme vending machine was launched in North Carolina, featuring 3-packs of doughnuts available 24 hours a day.

[23][24][25] The first Krispy Kreme store to open outside North America was in Penrith, New South Wales, Australia, part of metropolitan Sydney.

[27] Besides the stores that Krispy Kreme operate in the United States and Canada, there are also locations in Egypt, France, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Lebanon, Turkey, India, Dominican Republic, Iceland, Ireland, Kuwait, Guatemala, Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Russia, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Japan, Singapore, Cambodia, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain,[28] Hong Kong, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Chile.

In the United Kingdom, Krispy Kreme continues its expansion and had plans and funding in place to open further stores in 2012.

[33] On September 10, 2015, Krispy Kreme signed a development agreement with Agape Coral, SAC to open 24 shops over the next five years in Peru.

[citation needed] It expanded to France in December 2023 with its first Paris store, which is expected to make 45,000 doughnuts per day.

[38] On February 19, 2007, Krispy Kreme began selling the Whole Wheat Glazed doughnut in an attempt to appeal to the health conscious.

[40] The doughnuts proved so popular that the Salisbury, North Carolina, Krispy Kreme location (the town where Cheerwine is made) sold them as well.

[48] In December 2021, Krispy Kreme UK launched three more vegan doughnut flavors, Fudge Brownie Bliss, Caramel Choc Delight, and Apple Custard Crumble.

[52][better source needed] In 2014, Krispy Kreme released a $1,685 doughnut as part of fundraising efforts for The Children's Trust.

[54] Multiple physicians criticized this move, with former Baltimore health commissioner Leana Wen tweeting that a person who ate a doughnut every day without making other lifestyle changes could gain 15 pounds by the end of the year.

We're certainly not asking people to get a free Original Glazed doughnut every day, we're just making it available through the end of the year, especially given that not every group is eligible to get vaccinated yet."

Owning the controlling stake in Krispy Kreme Doughnuts as well as Insomnia Cookies and Pret A Manger (amongst other brands), one of the wealthiest families in Germany admitted in 2019 that they profited from forced labour during World War II.

[58] The German newspaper Bild originally published the story, based on an interim report by an economic historian at the University of Munich, Paul Erker - who was hired by the Reimann family to investigate their involvement with the Nazi Party.

[61] As reported by the New York Times, workers were beaten, and women were made to stand naked, and if they refused were sexually assaulted.

However, it attracted controversy after it was promoted as "KKK Wednesday" on Facebook, due to it sharing an abbreviation with the Ku Klux Klan, an American white supremacist terrorist group.

Krispy Kreme promptly apologized, canceled the event, pulled all marketing relating to it, and launched an internal investigation.