Standing on Guard for Tim’s

You can bet a dollar to a doughnut that heaven is round with a hole in the middle. Just like the doughnut itself: fragrant, warm and deeply satisfying. The snack of chubby cherubs. Chocolate almond biscotti? Light and crunchy, yes, but where is that stick-to-your-ribs, contentedly full feeling? Doughnuts are com- fort food par excellence. But, according to Steve Penfold, the doughnut is much more: it is a cul- tural symbol and a bellwether of Canadian social development. Really.

As a marketer, I can believe this. There are two tribes in the world: Tim’s people and Starbucks people. Tim’s (a.k.a. Tim Hortons) people (a.k.a. doughnut lovers) are earthy, honest, hardwork- ing. Give them a double double over a decaf grande vanilla soy latte any day. They like their snacks big, sweet, cheap and filling. They work with their hands and earn every penny. They talk about hockey, not postmodernism. They are essential Canadians, the bedrock of the Canadian shield.

Starbucks people? Yuppies. Pretentious advertising executives who wouldn’t allow anything without a fancy Italian name past their oh-so-glossy lips.

At one time, Canadians might have defined themselves as Catholic or Protestant; now, we define ourselves by the brands we eat, drive, sleep on and work with. Brands define the tribe you belong to. Suggest to an Apple person that a PC might have its advantages and you are courting a condescending, designerly sniff. When doughnut lovers scoff their favourite confection they are making a statement of belonging—just as when Harley-Davidson owners tattoo the logo on various parts of their bodies, they are making a lifelong commitment to their clan.

There is a political element to this analysis as well as a marketing one. Doughnuts are food for the proles, the quiet rebels against the insidious nannies who lecture us about cholesterol, body mass and spending hours on the treadmill and the smug urbanites who think nothing of shelling out three dollars for a cup of bitter tar the size of a thimble. If a revolution were to happen in Canada, it would be planned in a doughnut shop, not a Starbucks.

For Penfold, the doughnut is the essence of Canada and is interwoven with its social history. Nevertheless, as he makes clear, the Canadian- ness of doughnuts is a myth. These confections are no more Canadian than Fred Flintstone or Homer Simpson, whose loyalty to the doughnut is unquestioned: Homer once dreamily sighed “Ah, doughnuts. Is there anything they can’t do?” They weren’t invented here, and that Canadian icon Tim Hortons has been owned by an American fast-food chain for over a decade.

Yet somehow we have adopted them as our own; indeed, Penfold reports that several small towns vie for the title “Doughnut Capital of Canada,” as they do for “Hockey Capital” or “Moose Capital,” “Goose Capital” or whatever. Like most things Canadian, the fact that they are a regional phenomenon—they do not have much cultural status in Quebec or British Columbia, for instance—does not seem to matter. We eat more of them than anyone else: Canadian per capita doughnut consumption is the highest in the world. What is it about the humble doughnut that makes us feel more Canadian?