Have Twinkees gone the way of black and white TV's? From the Wall Street Journal:
http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324556304578122632560842670.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection
The seemingly imperishable Twinkie finally may have an expiration date.
Hostess Brands Inc., the 85-year-old maker of iconic treats such as Twinkies, Ding Dongs and pantry staples like Wonder Bread, on Friday said it would go out of business after failing to reach agreement on wage and pension cuts with its bakers' union.
Hostess Brands, the maker of iconic treats such as
Twinkies and traditional pantry staple Wonder Bread, said Friday it is
shuttering its plants and will seek to liquidate the 82-year-old business.
The Irving, Texas-based company, which filed for Chapter 11 for a second time
in January, closed all factories and asked a judge for permission to start
proceedings that will mean job losses for about 18,500 employees and could
result in more than 30 brands being sold or disappearing.
Just looking at the photos of the twinkees makes me want to have a couple of them with a glass of cold milk. I can taste them and I feel like heading to the store to look for a few packages.
I read the news stories about how the company's problems were caused by the unions not agreeing to reduce wages and benefits. So I figured the shut down was entirely the fault of the unions, right? But in the Wall Street Journal article it is reported that the company's problems with too much debt "traces back to Hostess's first trip through
bankruptcy in 2004. Missteps by a private-equity firm, hedge funds and managers
since burdened the company, despite its more than $2 billion in annual sales."
I read several articles about the history of Hostess 's financial problems since 2000. Its interesting and it made me realize that it was not as simple as I had thought. See
Anyway, I suspect the Twinkee brand may be sold off to someone else and live to fight another day. I still feel like a Twinkee. Maybe I will go wake up the Lovely Sharon and ask her if she wants to join me on a Twinkee Quest. I am pretty sure that will go over good.
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Best Twinkie story: Remember when you were on a business trip and eating at a fine restaurant. You jokingly asked for a Twinkie for dessert. The waiter actually ran to a convenience story nearby and bought you a Twinkie and had the chef decorate it with whipping cream and a cherry.
ReplyDeleteI do remember that. It was in Monterey, CA, The chef scalloped the twinkies and put cream over them. A true gourment desert.
ReplyDeleteBud