Pumpkin spice's retail runway just got longer. Flipz, the number-one chocolate-covered pretzel brand under pladis Americas, has launched a limited-time Pumpkin Spice Donut-Flavored Covered Pretzel in partnership with Dunkin', available through October at Kroger, Albertsons, CVS, Wakefern, Five Below, Dollar General, and Stop & Shop.
The product translates the flavor profile of Dunkin's Pumpkin Cake Donut — pumpkin, warming spice, cake donut notes — into a sweet-salty pretzel coating format. For retail buyers and category managers, the move is a case study in brand-licensed seasonal extensions: Dunkin' lends consumer recognition and seasonal equity, while Flipz handles manufacturing, shelf presence, and distribution through an already-established retail footprint.
The Licensing Play
Brand-licensed snack collaborations have become a reliable volume lever for both QSR and CPG operators looking to stretch seasonal IP beyond their primary channel. Dunkin', which operates more than 14,200 restaurants across nearly 40 global markets as part of Inspire Brands, carries strong pumpkin-season recognition that typically activates well before Labor Day. By routing that equity into retail snack aisles — a channel where Dunkin' has no direct product presence — the partnership creates incremental touch points without channel conflict.
Brian Gilbert, Vice President of Retail Business Development at Inspire Brands, framed the collaboration as an extension of Dunkin's seasonal franchise: the goal is giving fans another format to engage with a flavor they already anticipate each fall. For pladis, it's a proving ground for licensed flavor launches that sit alongside Flipz's existing Blueberry Donut SKU — itself a signal that donut-flavored coatings are becoming a repeatable line architecture rather than a one-off stunt.
What Retail Operators Should Watch
The retail distribution list here tells a useful story. Spanning drug (CVS), grocery (Kroger, Albertsons, Wakefern, Stop & Shop), value (Five Below, Dollar General), and regional cooperative banners, the launch reflects a deliberate multi-channel approach for a limited-time item. That breadth suggests pladis is using this SKU to test velocity across distinct shopper demographics simultaneously — data that will likely inform whether the Flipz-Dunkin' franchise extends into future seasons or additional flavors.
For operators managing snack or impulse categories — whether in a hotel lobby retail set, a convenience-forward café, or a grab-and-go station — limited-edition licensed items like this can drive trial and incremental basket size when positioned near seasonal beverages. The sweet-salty format also indexes well for afternoon daypart merchandising, which aligns with Dunkin's own core coffee-and-snack positioning.
Shivani Arora, Marketing Director at pladis Americas, noted that pumpkin spice has moved from seasonal trend to cultural phenomenon — a characterization supported by how aggressively the flavor now anchors Q3 CPG launch calendars across snack, dairy, and bev categories. Retailers who treat pumpkin-spice adjacency as a cohesive seasonal set, rather than isolated SKUs, tend to see stronger category lift.
For brand launch and buyer-deck strategy, this collaboration is worth studying as a template: a heritage QSR brand licenses a flavor to a retail snack manufacturer, the resulting SKU clears distribution at seven retail chains simultaneously, and both sides gain incremental media impressions from cross-promotional activity. It's a relatively low-capital brand-extension vehicle with measurable shelf-level ROI potential — exactly the kind of brand launch intelligence operators and buyers tracking snack and confection trends should have on their radar heading into Q3 planning.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
