Sunshine Doughnuts to raise day-old doughnut prices by 25%

By Tamara Wynn

COLORADO SPRINGS- Sunshine Doughnuts owner and general manager Tom Shelby announced yesterday that the Colorado-based breakfast and snack shop will raise the price of its day-old doughnut selection from $0.20 to $0.25. The increase comes after months of public posturing and backroom political bickering from interested parties on all sides of the day-old doughnut debate, and marks a shift in the landscape of the Rocky Mountain state’s pastry industry.

“This decision is not one that I have taken lightly,” an exhausted but redeemed Shelby told reporters at Tuesday’s press conference. “Ultimately, the decision was mine, but I do not mean to understate the amount of hard work went into this price shift from some extremely capable individuals. If things go as we expect them to go, this day will not just be a victory for Sunshine Doughnuts- it will be a victory for every citizen of Colorado, from French cruller crunchers to chocolate glazed gobblers.”

The increased price comes in response to the depressed economy and its affect on the doughnut industry. When doughnut revenue started falling around the start of the new year, the Sunshine staff largely divided itself into two camps: the price hikers, who thought that day-old doughnuts would be a hot commodity with less disposable income to go around, and the price slashers, who believed that prices should come down across the board, and generally favored a “small bakery” mentality. While Shelby remained uncommitted in early discussions, he eventually aligned himself with the hikers’ day-old option, as he subscribed to the belief that increasing the price now will pay dividends to future generations.

[RIGHT- The vast array of deep-fried delicacies will allow day-after doughnut buyers to save some cash. Those in charge of Friday morning office snacks will likely benefit the most.]

The slashers, on the other hand, criticized what they called the hikers “simplistic, big doughnut ideology.” Their economic mentality revolved around the old supply-side idiom that prices should stabilize or decrease in times of economic stagnation. As such, the slashers thought that the hikers had grown out of touch with the average Coloradan, and instead focused primarily on what would be good for the apple fritter-eating elite.

In the end, the hikers won out, largely due to the support of economists who weighed in on the issue. Paul Krugman, the Nobel-prize winning economist from Princeton, issued a highly persuasive policy paper on the earnings power of day-old doughnuts titled, “The Myth of Freshness,” in which he argued that the negative attitude toward day-old doughnuts revolves almost entirely around negative experiences with stale cake doughnuts. In reality, Krugman said, most of the stale cake doughnuts are bought in 12 packs from grocery stores and can age as many as three days before reaching sub-optimal dryness. Furthermore, any sort of glazed or frosted doughnut remains moist for up to 18 hours, making it safe to eat day-old doughnuts the morning after without running any risk of excess dryness.

Even with Krugman’s endorsement, Shelby weighed all possibilities before making a final decision. He hired a team of game theorists to run thousands of monte carlo computer simulations of different doughnut choices. He even tinkered with regular price of doughnuts- $0.75- to see how much it would change buyer behavior. Additionally, Shelby brought in several lab-based biochemists to analyze the effects of various environmental factors on different types of doughnuts. As most observers expected, these scientists confirmed Krugman’s theory that cake doughnuts are far more susceptible day-old dryness, but also found that any type of cream-filled pastry lasts up to 30% longer before becoming inedible compared to their dough-centered counterparts.

While Shelby insists that no single factor made his decision for him, he did emphasize the importance of the current economic climate. “We try to keep our focus on the future of the doughnut industry at all times,” Shelby said, “but the truth is that we would not be having this discussion about day-olds without the economy being in the condition that it is in. By ‘day-olds,’ I am referring to day-old doughnuts. Excuse me, I did not mean to slip into the technical jargon there.”

Typically, any changes in the Sunshine Doughnuts pricing scheme have to gain approval from a 3/5ths majority of the Shelby family. In this case, the Shelbys were able to raise the price of day-old doughnuts with only 50% support from the 6-member family, as the adults decided that newborn Kyle would not receive a vote. This development irked children Gerald and Kate, who aligned themselves with the slashers because they no longer receive an employee discount now that they are away at college in Boulder. Adding fuel to the fire are rumors that Mark, the youngest Shelby child until the birth of Kyle, was bribed to support the price hike with a backroom deal for free doughnuts for his 2nd grade class on hi s next birthday.