Do we like them?

Do we like Donut King?

Australian donut and coffee franchise, founded in Sydney in the 1980s and run as a franchise system since 1991.

Our score: 4 out of 10. We wouldn't back it with our money. The brand is well known, but its owner settled with the ACCC over how it treated franchisees, and the search results had little good news to set against that.

Donut King is an Aussie donut chain that started in Sydney and has been franchised since 1991. It's now one of the brands owned by Retail Food Group, a listed franchisor on the Gold Coast. Its Scandinavian master franchise rights were sold in 2017.

The drama is mostly about RFG, not the donuts. In late 2020 the ACCC took RFG to the Federal Court. It alleged RFG sold or licensed 42 loss-making company-owned stores to new franchisees between 2015 and 2019 and held back profit and loss information. It also alleged RFG used marketing fund money on things that weren't marketing. The brands named included Donut King and Gloria Jean's.

It ended in a settlement in December 2022. RFG gave the ACCC a court-enforceable undertaking, and the case was dismissed with no admission and no penalty. The ACCC described payments and debt waivers to franchisees of about $10 million, and the undertaking itself lists $8,035,055 in payments. Headlines said $13 million. RFG also contributed to the ACCC's legal costs.

We give it a 4. Franchisees got some money back, but the allegations were serious, nobody was penalised, and the search results turned up little on the good side.