Another day, another conspiracy here at WTPWB. This one takes us far from our Brooklyn roots, and down south to Todd P’s unfortunate home state of Texas. Specifically the micropolitan area of Huntsville, Texas. Yeah, it sounded familiar to us too. To save you the google search, you’re trying to come up with the name of that Merle Haggard song.
In case you hadn’t already heard, the Donut Wheel in Huntsville was burgled this past Saturday night. The crooks made off with TWO TONS of powdered sugar. Two (2) tons. In predictable WTPWB fashion, we did some digging:
First, let’s get an idea of how much powdered sugar we are actually talking about here. Two tons, in case you’re not good with google conversions, is equivalent to 4,000 pounds. This equates to about 16,000 cups worth. However you slice it, that’s a lot of powdered sugar.
Next, let’s learn a little more about the city of Huntsville. Population of around 33,373 once you take out the 1,705 prisoners that also reside within the city limits. Home to Sam Houston State University, and a large National Forest of the same name. Another notable aspect of Huntsville is the relative abundance of donut shops. Throughout the city alone, excluding outlying areas, there are six donut shops, concentrated largely on the city’s main drag–not surprisingly called Sam Houston Ave.
In addition to Wheel Donuts, you can head to Fresh Donuts, Mayflower Donuts and Bakery, or one of three locations run by the Shipley donut franchise. Plenty of options. We tried to find some feedback on Wheel Donuts relative to their competition, but we could only come up with this nugget from a fellow named Travis who succinctly claims that Wheel Donuts, “Taste like Windex.”
American consumers eat, on average, 35 donuts per year. Assuming that all the men, women, children, and babies of Huntsville perform their civic obligations and maintain this average, this works out to a respectable 1,168,055 donuts per year, or around 3,200 per day. However, split that out between the 6 options in the city, and this works out to each store doing a business of around 533 donuts per day.
If each donut sells for 75 cents, this would be a daily revenue stream of around $400 per store. A call to the Donut Wheel found that their hours are 4:00am to 4:00pm daily. Even if they only ever had two people working at any given time at the federally mandated minimum wage, this would represent a salary expense of $174 per day, almost half their revenue. Point being, the market seems a little crowded.
We here at WTPWB have developed two hypotheses as to what is happening here. The Shipley Motive, or the Inside Job.
The Inside Job
Let’s return to our analysis of how much powdered sugar was allegedly stolen: 16,000 cups. This delicious looking recipe calls for one half cup of powdered sugar per 18 donuts. As mentioned above, the Donut Wheel probably produces some 533 donuts daily. Even if we give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that half of these donuts are powdered, this still only works out to 7.5 cups of powdered sugar per day. Even if the thieves took every cup of powdered sugar in the place, this would mean that the Donut Wheel kept enough sugar on hand for 2,133 days of production, or around 5.85 years. Now, it’s true that because it’s an additive, sugar doesn’t spoil, but this seems like an awful lot to keep on hand. And, um does this place look sustainable enough to be around for the next six years?
The Shipley Motive
The second, juicier, and therefore more plausible explanation is that the heist was carried out by rival Shipley Donuts, in a ‘this town’s not big enough for the two us’ type of scheme (this seems to fit really well with Texas too). A couple clues point to this. First, this was not the first heist from the Wheel. Over the past three months they have seen flour, shortening, yeast all fly out the door as well. You really can’t chalk this up to kids, as mishevious little ones might think it funny to take some powdered sugar, but this amount would just be completely excessive. If a true heist, it would have to be someone who also loved to make donuts. The police claimed that the suspect headed north on Sam Houston Ave. The only donut shop in Huntsville north of Wheel? You guessed it, Shipley’s:
But why wouldn’t the police just waltz into Shipley and nab the perps? THEY’RE IN ON IT TOO! A cursory glance at the Huntsville website would make a visiting tourist think there was only one option for donuts in this fine city. There is notably no mention of Wheel, Fresh, or even Mayflower. WE CALL CAHOOTS! Also, cops aren’t known for coming down hard on donut shops. On the contrary, they have more of a reputation for vigorously defend them.
One Comment
What a sweet story!