Do we like them?

Do we like Baskin-Robbins?

Ice cream and frozen dessert chain, 100% franchised, founded in 1945; headquartered in Canton, Massachusetts, USA.

Our score: 5 out of 10. Mixed. It's a well-loved, harmless treat, but it sits inside a private-equity-owned group that lobbied against a higher minimum wage, and franchisees have been fined over labour rules.

Baskin-Robbins began in 1945 when Irv Robbins opened an ice cream shop in Glendale, California. Brother-in-law Burt Baskin started his own shop the following year, and the two combined the businesses in 1953. It has grown into the world's largest chain of ice cream specialty shops, with more than 7,700 shops in 33 markets.

Today it belongs to Inspire Brands, the Roark Capital-controlled group that also owns Dunkin', Arby's, Sonic and Buffalo Wild Wings. Inspire bought Dunkin' Brands, Baskin's previous parent, in December 2020 for about $11.3bn including debt. Baskin is fully franchised, so local owners run the shops. Roark is reported to be weighing an IPO of Inspire.

On workers, the US Department of Labor fined a Utah franchisee, JODE LLC, $49,833 in 2024. It found 64 teenagers aged 14 and 15 had worked too late and too many hours in a week during the school term. The franchisee said it had relied on wrong legal advice. That's a franchisee's fault, but it shows how hard franchised workplaces are to police.

The parent has also made headlines. NBC News reported that Inspire worked against the Raise the Wage Act, which would lift the federal minimum wage to $15. Inspire said it doesn't back a one-size-fits-all minimum wage. On the brighter side, Baskin ran an August 2026 campaign giving $1 per Sunday sundae to its children's foundation.

Our score is a middling 5. The ice cream is a harmless pleasure and there's no huge scandal attached to the brand itself. But the money flows to a private-equity-owned group with a lobbying record against higher pay, and we couldn't find much concrete good on pay, environment or sourcing to balance that.