Dunkin’s bacon doughnut sandwich goes national this week

Eric Pfeiffer
·Reporter

Dunkin’ Donuts wants everyone to have the opportunity to experience its culinary creation. So the store has decided to begin selling its bacon, egg and doughnut sandwiches at all of its locations beginning June 7.

The sandwich contains a fried egg and slices of smoked bacon stuffed between the halves of a sliced, glazed doughnut.

“The glazed doughnut is light and fluffy and gives you just the right amount of sweetness,” says Dunkin’ Executive Chef Stan Frankenthaler. “Combined with the lightly salted, smoked bacon, the texture and flavors marry together in a wonderful way. It’s a delicious bite of the perfect harmonization of sweet and savory flavors.”

And the timing is perfect, as June 7 is also the too-good-to-be-true holiday National Doughnut Day.

As it turns out, Dunkin' is not the first operation to produce a doughnut-based sandwich. The Illinois minor league baseball team the Gateway Grizzlies has been selling a doughnut hamburger, using Krispy Kremes in place of traditional buns. The ballpark says it sells 100-200 of the sandwiches each game night for $4.50 each.

However, the bacon donut sandwich is not the avalanche of calories some might expect. In fact, it clocks in at only 360 calories, less than Dunkin’s turkey sausage sandwich (390 calories), which is marketed at more health conscious consumers.

Interestingly, food chains that offer lower-calorie dining options saw an 11 percent spike in sales last year, while those that didn’t saw a 15 percent drop in sales, according to information released by the Hudson Institute.

However, as the AP notes, over-the-top food options have proved incredibly popular as well. For example, Taco Bell said its Doritos Locos Taco has proved to be its most successful item ever, boosting the chain’s overall sales by 8 percent in 2012.

And if that's the case, the bacon doughnut might just prove to be a strong addition for Dunkin' Donuts, which already generated some $5.5 billion in 2012 across its 7,015 U.S. locations.