Well, I’ve never trusted Donut King. Their doughnuts are ordinary and very over-priced. And the parent company doesn’t look after its franchisees.

I have a few other issues with them that I won’t bring up here because I wouldn’t want to go on the record for saying those things about them.

Anyway, a news article hit on 9 October 2019 that the jam used in the raspberry jam doughnuts is not raspberry jam at all but actually flavoured apple puree. And Donut King is not the only place that does this.

Here’s a couple of key lines from the article from news.com.au:

“Some food brands use apple paste or sauce as the core ingredient in their raspberry jam recipe,” Donut King general manager Andrew Badcock told news.com.au.

Yep, that’s right — the “raspberry jam” is actually apple sauce that is coloured and flavoured. The world as we know it is a lie.

It also says:

Kerrie McCallum, editor-in-chief of Delicious, also told news.com.au that mass-produced doughnuts used a “diluted” jam substitute.

“Big chains use a type of diluted jam substance to get the thinner consistency and sweeter taste they want,” she said.

I have to admit that I wasn’t aware of this happening. And I guess the question is does it really matter? As long as you think it’s raspberry jam, it is raspberry jam.

It’s a bit like chicken chips – there is no chicken in chicken chips. That’s why they call them ‘chicken flavoured’ chips.

But I will be keeping an eye on my jam doughnuts in future to see if I can pick which ones use apple puree and which use the real McCoy. Looking back, I reckon I can pick which are which.

I’ll also be doing spot checks on packaged jam doughnuts to see how honest they are about the apple substitute business.

I’ve always had a issue with the expectations on packaged food versus unpackaged food.

Put something in a package and you need to list ingredients, fat/sugar/etc content, allergy warnings, producer’s name and address, and other things. Sell it unpackaged and it’s a free-for-all. It doesn’t make sense.

In the meantime, enjoy your doughnuts for what they are.

Here’s the full article:
Big myth about jam doughnuts busted