Ed Atwell, who runs HFT with his wife, Doris, has seen the future of doughnuts.SUPPLIED
Is there a way to build a better doughnut? Ed Atwell thinks so. Whether he’s in the fried sweet business or actually in the technology business, the Almonte, Ontario entrepreneur is all about ingenuity.
The owner of Healthy Food Technologies Inc. (HFT), didn’t set out to reinvent the fryer. Mr. Atwell simply wanted to make a novelty doughnut. It was called the Sunny Moon, a two-tone concoction that’s half chocolate and half vanilla. He patented the doughnut about 25 years ago, and it became the inspiration for a much larger idea.
Making the Sunny Moon took some creativity, as it’s tough to make a ‘seamless’ doughnut, says Mr. Atwell. That got him thinking about frying techniques and ways to make doughnuts lighter.
Fifteen years ago, he came up with a low-fat process where the dough would go into a fryer, then get transferred to an oven just before it would absorb most of the oil. He had to build a combo deep fryer and oven to pull it off.
As he explains, the oil is used to ‘toast’ the doughnut, which then spends 60 per cent of its cooking time in the oven, which is heated to the same 375 degrees. That ‘tricks’ the doughnut into thinking it’s still being heated by the oil, Mr. Atwell says.
To describe how the dough reacts when heat is transferred, Mr. Atwell coined the term exohypothermia. With the dough no longer in oil, it stops acting like a sponge. The result is a fried product that retains its flavor and texture but contains a fraction of the fat – about 50 to 70 per cent less fat than its deep-fried counterparts.
Mr. Atwell has taken a winding path through the doughnut industry. He worked in management for Country Style, and honed his skills at Tim Hortons in Nova Scotia, where he opened stores and trained bakers. “A doughnut has its own language,” he says.
After working as a consultant for the industry, he created the Sunny Moon doughnut. Later, his first attempts at designing a new baking method involved combining a deep fryer with an old pizza oven. “I was just trying to prove a theory.”
He bought a building in an industrial park in Almonte, and converted it into a doughnut-making R&D facility in 2010. During the process of perfecting his technique, Mr. Atwell had loads of doughnuts left over. So he just started giving them away to the local grocery store and police station. Eventually, he stuck a small sign outside HFT that read ‘doughnuts today’ and word spread. In 2013, he added a storefront. Now, his full-production doughnut shop employs 10 people.
“For the longest time we were growing at 35 per cent per year,” says Mr. Atwell. Though the COVID-19 pandemic slowed down that rate, “We haven’t lost growth either, which in these economic times is huge.”
HFT's customers love how the doughnuts combine flavour and lower fat.SUPPLIED
Before he opened his shop, a large doughnut manufacturer had expressed interest in buying Mr. Atwell’s technology, but the deal never materialized. He says his pitch was perhaps too bold for the corporate world. “You’ve been making doughnuts the wrong way for 50 years. That’s a tough sell.”
Still, focusing on the byproduct of the process – the actual doughnut – instead of just trying to sell or license the technology was the right strategy for HFT, says Mark Freel, a professor of entrepreneurship at the Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa.
“Turning it into his own products is probably the best way to monetize his own technology,” says Mr. Freel, whose research focuses on innovation, and how firms create and capture value.
He says that if you’re a small company, like a doughnut shop in Almonte, some multinational might purchase your technology or pay you royalties for its use. But it doesn’t happen often. The best thing to do is use that technology to make your own goods “and make a great reputation doing it – that’s how you make money.”
HFT has a cult following in Almonte and beyond. Word-of-mouth has brought doughnut pilgrims from across Ontario. One time, a Toronto company sent an Uber driver through the night to pick up 10 dozen doughnuts for a morning meeting. “That was probably the craziest thing we ever saw happen,” says Mr. Atwell.
Devotees love the shop’s lower-fat wares, yet the doughnut’s appeal goes far beyond the nutritional breakdown.
“Oil gives a negative flavour after time,” says Mr. Atwell. “But when you heat a product like bread, it enhances the flavour. So we have a product that’s lower in fat, but actually has more flavour.”
While he has a successful doughnut shop, Mr. Atwell still talks up his technology. Besides the flavour and low-fat benefits, he says his process can deliver significant cost savings, mainly through oil saved, and can virtually pay for itself within a year.
Even though he feels like his technology can disrupt doughnut-making, Mr. Atwell is content to let the process unfold naturally. Maybe one day it will take over the commercial market. Until then, “I look at the technology like a tree. I’ll plant it and it’ll grow as it wants to.”