Federal Donuts & Chicken

The vendor opportunity at Federal Donuts

Federal Donuts & Chicken is a quick-service restaurant concept headquartered in Pennsylvania with a deliberately small footprint of 12 total units—7 franchised and 5 company-owned. For software vendors, the immediate addressable market is limited, but the unit economics are compelling: average unit volume sits at $1,007,131, and the brand collects a 6.0% royalty on a 10-year initial term. The operator base is concentrated, with just 2 mapped operators running a single unit each, located in Michigan and California. No multi-unit operators are on file, meaning every franchisee relationship is a one-to-one sale. The brand appears independently owned with no parent company disclosed in the FDD.

Who controls software purchasing

Purchasing authority is centralized at HQ. The 2025 FDD lists Jeff Benjamin as Chief Executive Officer and Braden Alsnauer as Director of Operations. Founders Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook, along with Chief Development Officer Eric Lavinder, round out the leadership team. For a vendor selling operational or in-store technology, Benjamin and Alsnauer are the most logical entry points. The brand mandates specific technology categories, which signals that HQ—not individual franchisees—drives software selection and compliance. There is no CIO or CTO on file, so the buying center likely involves operations leadership making technology decisions directly.

Mandated and current tech stack

The FDD is explicit about two mandated systems: a Gift Card system and a Loyalty Program. No specific vendor names are attached to these mandates in the disclosure, and no POS, back-office, or online ordering platforms are listed as required or recommended. This gap suggests that either those systems are left to franchisee discretion or that the franchisor has not formalized additional mandates as of the 2025 filing. For vendors selling into the loyalty or stored-value space, the mandate creates a captive opportunity—if you can displace or integrate with the incumbent. For everyone else, the tech landscape is largely undefined in the public record, which means discovery calls with HQ are essential to map the actual stack.

Procurement, renewals, and timing

Item 8 of the FDD, which typically outlines designated suppliers and purchasing restrictions, was not extracted in the available data. Without that signal, the procurement model remains opaque. Vendors should assume a need to sell directly to HQ and confirm whether an approved-supplier program exists. On the renewal side, Item 17 provides concrete timing triggers. Franchise agreements run for an initial 10 years and can be renewed for successive 5-year terms. Renewal is conditional: the franchisee must sign the then-current agreement—which may have materially different terms—and complete any required remodeling, including equipment updates. These remodeling and re-equipping clauses are natural inflection points where software and hardware vendors can position upgrades or replacements.

How to read the Federal Donuts FDD

The full 2025 Franchise Disclosure Document is embedded below. For software vendors, the highest-value sections are Item 11 (Franchisor's Obligations), where the mandated Gift Card and Loyalty systems are disclosed, and Item 17 (Renewal, Termination, Transfer), which spells out the remodel and re-equip conditions that can trigger technology re-evaluations. The operator footprint data shows a brand in a very early stage of franchising, with no year-over-year unit growth disclosed and a unit-band split that confirms all operators run between 1 and 2 locations. This is a small, high-AUV target where every unit counts. For a ranked list of franchise brands that match your software's ideal customer profile, FranCloud can help.