KITS CONTINUE
Ignite Donuts selling donut kits through COVID-19 pandemic
With the continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ignite Donuts continues to sell their donut kits on and off campus.
Ignite Donuts was started by Casey Croad and his close friends a couple years ago while they were students at CMU. Since their start, Ignite Donuts has been providing their kits to businesses like The Market, The P.O.D. Market, Ric’s Food Center, and CMU home football games among other local vendors.
“It’s been interesting. We were small before COVID and we’re still small but we’ve grown from 1 to 6 accounts,” Croad said. “We had to shut down operations until fall at the beginning of pandemic.”
During that downtime, Croad created the Ignite Donuts Podcast to talk about other businesses and started a baking channel.
Ignite Donuts has added a delivery option though the orders are not open at all hours of the day due to Croad and his team not being available at all hours to produce and deliver the donuts.
“We got popular with delivery when Ignite was suggested in an online group and a lot of parents purchased donuts for their students,” Croad said.
The business also offers catering options, which has been utilized by multiple organizations on and off campus. However, catering has taken a hit since the pandemic began though Ignite Donuts has done a big orders for a few events, like a Super Bowl party.
With the spring season coming, Croad is interested in doing a food truck at local events since the CO
VID-19 pandemic put a damper on such selling opportunities.
“It’s in the works,” Croad said. “We’d love to do Food Truck Fridays and the farmers’ markets again. We’re trying to find reliable students to help with business.”
In terms of what comes next, Croad plans to start a student co-op that would give students hands-on business experience and pay them. Croad is also interested in opening a cafe location at some point and maybe branching out to other cities.