I'm going to disagree on you on several points of misinformation here.

The old system several years ago of making donuts was a baker would come in 5am and prepare many pounds of yeast and cake dough for the day.. usually between 50-100 pounds of yeast dough for example. depending on the size of the store. They usually would be made between 5-9am and would sit on the shelf all day and if not sold they would be tossed at the end of the night.

The new system is not simply they are shipped frozen but the dough is par baked and flash frozen to be shipped out to the different stores. Once arrived they are baked and decorated in smaller more frequent batches (of ~15 fills or 24 rings at most) to keep the exposure to the air to a minimum and to keep it more moist. Test markets around the country showed that the consumer could not actually tell the difference from the old and new system and in the regional meetings the respective owners could not even tell the difference.

No not many food products are made in house but the incorporation of standardization across the chain has left more consistent product then leaving it up to a just-above-minimum-wage baker who usually doesn't give a shit about his/her job. The egg and chicken salads are still made in store but they are pretty hard to screw up.

The bacon that tim hortons has had for their BLT has never changed in the past 20 years. Pretty much every 'fast food' location uses the exact same bacon and as long as it is prepared correctly and isn't left on the heating trays too long it really isnt that bad.

Also in Canada 95% of the store locations are franchised stores and are not corporately controlled.

Soruce: Family franchise in Canada for the past 18 years