- We tried everything on the UK and US
Krispy Kreme menus to find out the big differences between the two. - While the two
fast food chains look similar on the surface there were differences between the sizes, calories, and ingredients.
Following is a transcript of the
Harry: From calorie count to portion sizes, we wanted to find out all the differences between Krispy Kreme in the UK and the US. This is
Harry: In the UK, we can get
Joe: In the US, you can get your doughnuts in single, two, if you get it with a coffee combo, three-pack, dozen - look at these beauties - or two dozen.
Harry: Now technically, the double dozen isn't the biggest thing on the UK menu. Krispy Kreme in the UK will cater for events like your weddings or your parties. And they can do something called a doughnut wall, which contains 216 doughnuts hanging on pegs on a wall. That's 18 dozen.
Joe: Krispy Kreme will also make you something called the doughnut tower. It looks almost like a wedding cake and is made of around 216 doughnuts. You've got to give them a heads up though, because I went to the Krispy Kreme today and asked for one and they said no.
Also in the US at Krispy Kreme you can get mini doughnuts in four or 20. I have to know. Uh oh, I'm in trouble. I don't know if I'm going to make it through this shoot, Conner. These are so good.
This right here is a standard USA Krispy Kreme classic glazed doughnut. I want to bite into you so bad. But before that, let's weigh it.
Harry: Now we're going to weigh a glazed doughnut in the UK to see what it comes to.
Joe: Oh, they're so light.
Harry: So our glazed doughnut in the UK weighed 53 grams.
Joe: Ours weighs 48 grams.
Harry: In the UK, our hot coffee sizes are regular and large.
Joe: US Krispy Kreme, you can get your coffee in three sizes: small, medium, and large. And if you're really thirsty, you can get yourself a Brew Box. Nice.
Harry: A large hot coffee in the UK is supposed to be 16 ounces. So we're going to measure that to find out if that's true. And to make sure that this reading is absolutely accurate, got a big boy.
Joe: OK. Krispy Kreme in the US, you can get your iced coffees in two sizes, medium and large.
Harry: Iced coffees in the UK also come in two sizes, regular and large. They use the same cups as the hot coffees. They've ditched the plastic ones apparently to cut down on plastic waste.
Joe: And now we're going to measure our iced coffee, black. Oh, definitely more coffee.
Harry: Now besides doughnut walls, the biggest thing on the UK menu is this, the Sharer Bundle. It's four dozen doughnuts, and it comes to 41 pounds and 95 pence.
Joe: This here is the largest single menu item you can get at a US Krispy Kreme. It is the Meet and Greet. Two dozen assorted doughnuts and a Brew Box, all for $42.95.
Harry: Let's look at nutrition. This is a classic ring glazed doughnut from Krispy Kreme, and it contains 200 calories, 8.3 grams of fat, 12.6 grams of sugar, and 96 milligrams of sodium.
Joe: That same doughnut in the US is 190 calories, 11 grams of fat, 10 grams of sugar, and 85 milligrams of sodium. Ours is less with everything except fat.
Harry: Few people can stop after just one doughnut. So if you just had to have three of these, the calories go up. Now you're looking at 600 calories, which is 30% of your daily allowance.
Joe: And in the US, these three doughnuts are slightly less in calories. It's 570 over here. But look at how much sugar these three doughnuts had. It's almost three-fourths what you should be having in one day. Speaking honestly though, if I have these it's not like I'm going to have a salad for lunch.
Harry: Getting a dozen doughnuts for you and your friends or just yourself, that would put you at 2,400 calories. And in the US, our dozen comes to 2,280 calories.
Joe: I would hope you wouldn't eat all 12 of these by yourself. But if you do, I guess that's all the calories you're going to need for the day.
Harry: I could eat 12 of these, easy. Another popular doughnut at Krispy Kreme is the chocolate glazed.
Just ignore the sprinkles on ours because we didn't have any plain ones. Now, this one is 237 calories and also beats the classic glazed in pretty much every other metric, probably because of the chocolate frosting.
Joe: Our US chocolate glazed is 240 calories. So it looks like the chocolate glaze helped put us over the top. What?
Harry: If you want even more calories in your doughnuts, how about the UK's chocolate iced with custard? Now this one is 289 calories.
Joe: And ours is 300 calories. 300, just this one doughnut? I'm definitely going to regret it. That tastes so good.
Harry: In the UK, the most calorific doughnut is this one, the Lotus Biscoff doughnut. It's 396 calories.
Joe: The most calorific doughnut you can get at a Krispy Kreme, at least in America, is something called the chocolate chip cookie dough doughnut, made with Chips Ahoy! cookies. And it is 400 calories. They weren't available where we went.
And the second most calorific doughnut you can get at a Krispy Kreme is the Oreo Cookies and Kreme doughnut. That's 390 calories. Also couldn't get it.
The third most calorific doughnut you can get at a Krispy Kreme in the United States is the double dark chocolate doughnut. 370 calories. No.
And the fourth most calorific doughnut you can get at a US Krispy Kreme is the cake batter doughnut. 360 calories. We got it. This is a nice-looking, this is like white. I mean, this is sprinkles, it's colorful. Oh man, I'm fading fast. I shouldn't, I'm going to drink all those coffees.
Harry: What about the drinks? Well, this is a large mocha with 2% milk. And in the UK it contains 247 calories, 16.3 grams of fat, 12 grams of sugar, and 80 milligrams of sodium.
Joe: In the US, our large mocha is 480 calories, 1 gram of sugar, and 260 milligrams of sodium. Come here, you salty mocha dog. Whoa, this is good. I'm surprised, I thought I wasn't going to like it. I normally don't get chocolatey drinks.
Harry: If you get this as an iced coffee, it contains 280 calories, 12 grams of sugar, and 14 milligrams of sodium.
Joe: Do you want to get it iced? Now the calories are 420, 2 grams of sugar, and 190 milligrams of sodium.
Harry: Since the UK and US sizes are different, we've calculated it per fluid ounce. And we found some pretty shocking differences. From the UK to the US, there's a 55.5% calorie increase, a 93.3% sugar decrease, and a 160% sodium increase.
Joe: I've eaten way too many doughnuts on this thing, dude. I'm losing, losing my ---ing mind.
And in the US, our doughnut is made up of: Enriched Wheat Flour, (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, Palm Oil, Soybean Oil, Sugar. And it contains less than 2% of each of the following: Yeast, Soy Lecithin, Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Salt, Mono and Diglycerides, Wheat Gluten, Calcium Sulfate, Monocalcium Phosphate, BHT -
Ah yes, our old friend BHT, aka butylated hydroxytoluene? It is banned in the European Union. The International Agency for Research on Cancer suggests, might I say strongly suggests, there is sufficient evidence that BHT causes tumor growth in lab animals. Also, according to WebMD, BHT is also used to treat genital herpes.
All right. Dried Milk Powder, Egg Yolks, Yolks, yolks, egg yolks. Cellulose Gum, Calcium Propionate (To Maintain Freshness), Ammonium Sulfate, Ascorbic Acid, Dicalcium Phosphate, Sorbitan Monostearate, Tocopherols, Tricalcium Phosphate, Diammonium Phosphate. That last guy, diammonium phosphate, aka DAP Not the sequel to WAP. It is also used as a fertilizer and as a fire retardant. So when we have the next wildfire outbreaks in the state, because it definitely will happen, we're going to start dropping Krispy Kremes on those wildfires. Problem solved.
Harry: In the UK, a glazed doughnut is made of the following: Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin), Water, Dextrose, Palm Oil, Yeast, Salt, Wheat Gluten, Emulsifiers (Mono and Diglycerides, Sorbitan Monostearate), Raising Agents (Monocalcium Phosphate, Dicalcium Phosphate), Sugar, Dried Egg Yolk Powder, Skimmed Milk Powder, Preservative (Calcium Propionate), Stabiliser (Carboxymethyl Cellulose), Firming Agent (Calcium Sulphate), Flavouring, Acidity Regulators (Ammonium Sulphate, Diammonium Phosphate), Flour Treatment Agent (Ascorbic Acid), Enzyme (Amylase), Anticaking Agent (Tricalcium Phosphate)], Glaze [Sugar, Water, Calcium Sulphate, Agar, Dextrose, Locust Bean Gum, Disodium Phosphate, Flavouring (Vanilla), and salt.
Joe: Oh, they're not done. No. Nope, there's more. That was the doughnut. Now we're going to talk about what's in the glaze.
[Video speeds ahead.]
Both: Sugar, water ...
Harry: That's a lot of ingredients for a doughnut. One thing worth pointing out is the differences in the sprinkles between the UK and the US. Three of the colorings used in the US are actually subject to restrictions in the European Union. And if they're included in foods, they must bear a warning that they may cause hyperactivity in children.
Joe: Not here though, baby. Not here.
Harry: Blue 1 isn't actually on this list, but it's also very hard to come by in the UK. It was famously removed from Smarties in the UK several years ago. And it took them three years to find a natural alternative to the blue color, which ended up being spirulina.
Harry: Here is everything you can only find on the menu at a UK Krispy Kreme.
Joe: And these are all the things you can get at a US Krispy Kreme.
Harry: Let's start with some doughnuts. The first one we'll look at is this one, the Lotus Biscoff. Now, Lotus Biscoffs are those little biscuits which you usually get on the side of a cup of coffee. It's like a caramel-flavored crunchy cookie, and we're kind of obsessed with them in the UK. This one comes with some crumbled-up Biscoff on the top. And then I think the icing also has Biscoff in it. And there's also some Biscoff injected inside as well. Next up, we have this one, which is a chocolate dream cake. Caramel iced ring doughnut. Nutty filled berry ring doughnut. The purple Love Hearts doughnut. Now this one's been produced in collaboration with Love Hearts, the candy, as you can see by the very cute phrase on top. This is a varied thing. We just got one that says OMG. Next up, we have the Caramel Sensation, Nutty Chocolatta. Now it's actually a heart-shaped doughnut with some chocolate icing on top. And importantly, it's full of Nutella. That's a little bit underwhelming. I wanted more Nutella to come out there. Pretty good.
Joe: And these are all the exclusive items you can get at a US Krispy Kreme. OK, so the US Krispy Kreme has so many exclusive USA-only doughnuts. But they're not available at every Krispy Kreme. So the one we specifically went to had about a dozen of those doughnuts. An original filled chocolate cream. So you can see in the little white spot there that that is where they put the cream in there. Pretty sure that's an apple fritter. That's the birthday cake. And what we saw before, chocolate icing filled with custard. Yeah, that's definitely a custard one. Can you see the yellow in there? I'm going to assume this is maybe the glazed sour cream cake? Sugared ring and cinnamon sugared ring. See this eclair right here? New York City cheesecake. Glazed raspberry-filled. Oh, God. That's not that much stuff in here. So good. I'm going to be so sick, and I don't care. Also at the US Krispy Kreme, you can get these doughnut holes. They put them in these cups that might be reusable. The UK does not have these, as before mentioned, minis. It's usually 20, but the crew got to them too fast. I couldn't stop them. Couldn't stop them.
Harry: Now on top of the doughnuts themselves, the UK also has exclusive ways of presenting the doughnuts. For example, here we have a birthday box. And you can also get a doughnut with a customized message printed on it. Unfortunately, we didn't give them enough warning. So maybe if the editor can just add one here, that would be great.
["BITE ME" on doughnut.]
Joe: The Krispy Kreme in the US has a lot of varieties of hot and cold drinks. You can get your lattes in a version of vanilla, caramel, or white chocolate. And then the iced drinks. Same rules as before. Everything has a vanilla, white chocolate, and caramel version. This right here is the Malibu Dream. It is a strawberry, banana, and vanilla shake. It tastes OK. And we actually have a few more things I forgot. Oh, I almost forgot. Get bottled drinks to go.
Harry: Krispy Kreme in the UK also offers a range of exclusive shakes. We have four of them here. We have the Oreo shake, a strawberry and cream shake, the Lotus Biscoff shake, and then this one is a chocolate cream shake. Back at it again with the Biscoff. Like, what's the deal with that? Why is everyone so obsessed with Biscoff? I don't get it. I'm just going to say I don't like Biscoff, and I'm mad that they've put it in so many things on their menu.
I'm going to try the Oreo one, because even though it's sat under studio lights for several hours, it still looks and smells pretty good. Woo, that is very sweet, but pretty good. We can also get some exclusive iced drink options in the UK, including a pink lemonade, an original lemonade, a frozen mango, and a coffee chiller. Although unfortunately, the ice machine was broken when we went, so we couldn't get them today. And finally, apparently you guys can't get flat whites in the US, which is surprising, because we drink those all the time in the UK. It's kind of just like a latte, but with slightly less foam.
Harry: Hey, thanks for watching. We have a new project coming that we're really excited about. And we're going to show you a few seconds of it right now. This is a Big Mac. And this is everything that's in a Big Mac. Welcome to Fast Food Chemistry.
Joe: I feel like I'm watching someone making an explosive.
Harry: This is potassium aluminium sulfate. Soy lecithin, calcium chloride, potassium sorbate, polyoxyethylene sorbitan monooleate. So there you have it. Can you tell which one is ours?
Joe: But that looks, it actually looks pretty good. I'm very surprised by that.
Harry: That's right, we used every chemical McDonald's uses to make a Big Mac. But you'll have to tune in next Sunday to see how it turned out. Be sure to subscribe to Food Insider so you don't miss it.
Joe: Soy lecithin. Did you hear that? Yeah, my stomach's churning, all these doughnuts. This was a mistake and the best mistake I've ever made. I don't care how I feel, these doughnuts are so good.