I am sure by now the news is out world wide that Hostess is out of business because they could not come to an agreement with their Baker’s Union. Hostess is the maker of Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Wonder Bread ceased operations completely this week, looking to liquidate all it’s assets and it’s iconic brands. Also chopped were 18,000 employees.
Of course the company was in bankruptcy prior to this event. A smart move would have been to announce potential closing of the company several months ago in hopes of driving business to a lackluster performing market. Just look at the reaction because of the actual closing:
The above picture was the scene at my local Kroger store on Saturday. Twinkies, Ding Dongs etc wiped off the shelves. The only thing remaining was the 100 calorie packs (ironic). And now opportunists are trying to cash in on collectors and people who can’t get enough artificially flavored excess by buying up the stock and selling it on ebay and craigslist. With the demise of Twinkies, carnies worldwide are screaming in pain due to lost sales of deep fried Twinkies.
Not everyone is unhappy. I saw the Little Debbie delivery guy and you would have thought he won the lottery. Because guess who get double space now to hock his wares?
The cartoon’s hilarious!
Actually this doesn’t affect me–I’ve always preferred Zingers (made by Dolly Madison), because they have icing on them.
I don’t eat them anymore though, because they’re made with corn syrup instead of sugar. Almost everything sweet is made with corn syrup instead of sugar these days.
This may be TMI–but corn syrup gives me the runs (it’s made with corn, that’s why), and I don’t understand why it doesn’t seem to give anyone else the runs.
Besides, corn syrup is more unhealthy than sugar.
Well, I’m thinking the twinbkie in Bearman’s toon has the runs too!!!!
Scott I have tears running down my face. You would be hilarious at parties. Give Scott a Zinger!! Well as long as it wasn’t at MY house.
I must admit, I was not aware of this shattering world news situation. I am sad to see such the icon in branding go. And the loss for writers, of humor to scifi, to use historic references to times beyond today is totally epic!! A connoisseur, not so much. An appreciator of generational products and product awareness, to be sure. Who doesn’t remember how many ways Wonder builds strong bodies!?! And the famous Twinkie defense. Oh my, as George Takei would say – what a loss to humanity at large!
Thank you for memorializing the product line / icon in such an honorable, but sad, way.
janet
Janet I provide a much needed news source to the world.
OK…I remember Wonder builds strong bodies but I don’t remember the number of ways.
Yes you certainly do, Bearman!!! If I remember correctly, I believe it was 12 TWELVE (repetition in commercials) ways… though, I must admit, methinks memory wasn’t one of them, cuz I can’t remember all 12 right now… I too enjoy sharing valuable info to the world, so I shall research (google) and get back to ya!!
If it didn’t have a jingle…I don’t remember it.
Here’s what I got: Several advances in the nutrition and baking process were made during this decade. In 1941, Wonder Bread was involved in a government-supported move to enrich white bread with vitamins and minerals to improve nutrition. Known as the “quiet miracle,” bread enrichment nearly eliminated the diseases Beriberi and Pellagra and brought essential nutrients to people who previously could not afford nutritious foods. At the same time Wonder introduced a revolutionary new way of baking that eliminated holes in bread.
PLUS: here’s a tiny bit of Wonder commercial: http://archive.org/details/wonder_bread…
I was going to link you to my blog, where this issue became part of the discussion after I published a post about Guy Fieri’s FAIL. But I thought that would be shameless self promotion. So I linked directly top the Wonder stuff and will just sneak in a link to my blog here http://wp.me/p1yc93-Ru … I am still shameless!!!
I am all for shameless self promotion from my readers (unless you are selling timeshare or watches)
COOL!!! I’m not selling anything on my blog (yet)!!! But it won’t be timeshares OR watches!!
I haven’t had a Hostess product in years. It’s a shame though that they’ve gone out of business, and all those people out of jobs…very sad.
Now don’t you feel guilty for not buying one?
Don’t feel a thing.
I don’t eat any of this stuff so all I care about are the jobs lost. The unions are often going way too far. It’s a shame, but I think many other businesses will go under because the unions won’t budge. What a shame.
Have a terrific day.
It’s hard to say whether it was the unions fault or the union fall guy but again they need to deal with the repercussions of their actions.
I was sad to hear of the loss of the Twinkie! I haven’t had one in years. How else am I supposed to punish my arteries? I suppose I do have some ideas…
Cinnabon is still in business.
Unions have a place in labor-employee relations to protect employees from management abuse (and I can say that, I’m management) but if a company will go down unless some kind of agreement can be reached, someone must budge. Problem is, the unionized individuals tend to believe that the company masters can actually do better (and often they can) but someitmes it is not possible.
One has to wonder whether the company was doomed to fall no matter what, or is the actions of the unuion actually caused the fall instead of just accelerating it.
Now, if the unioin is responsible (and I don’t have enough information to make that judgement) they should gather their resources, and buy the company. Then they will see if the agreement they were trying to impose on management is actually doable. Who knows, maybe the twinkies will come back…
I only have two real issues with most unions.
- One, when you are forced to join a union in order to get a job but the union won’t let you join even if you are more qualified than someone in the union because they protect that job.
- Two, failure to weed out poor performers.
The brand will not go away. I am sure someone will buy the rights to sell Twinkies even if Hostess is gone. I hope it is someone like Kashi so they make a 7 grain Twinkie on a mission.
You just made me vomit a little in my mouth.
LOL!!!
Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. And I always hated Twinkies.
Multigrain Twinkies is what grossed me out.
I had never considered it could be worse…until this post.
You can’t buy Twinkies Down Under but everyone knows they are an iconic US snack. How many jobs lost? I thought the role of the Unions was to protect the workers? Seems like a fail!!!
See that is where the company failed. They should have sold them to the fat Aussies and they wouldn’t have gone bankrupt.
Of course, think of all those poor children missing out on all those fat globs. Terrible loss.
I’m sure they will find replacements
I love the Twinkie man ‘toon, BearMan. Alas, another major business went under, maybe due to the death by non-nutrition? many more will fall before enough people in the states finally wake up to the “fat” the Big men in government & business want us all to swallow. thanks for the good fat free giggles
Not only are my giggles fat free, if you laugh hard enough you actually burn calories.
Twinkies will still be available in Canada since a separate company has the rights to make them here. So if anyone needs a package of Twinkies, I can send you some. For a price.
What’s the price? Maple syrup?
I’ll take maple syrup, sure. It’s practically worth its weight in gold.
I can only imagine the syrup bill at Chris’ house.
Forget Chris….Peter probably hoards the stuff.
We don’t wast maple syrup on the humans around here!
Or waste it, either.
This does not effect me directly. I did read a comment that the universe is not fair because just as marijuana starts to become legalized Hostess goes out of business.
Well good news for doritos.
Wow, funny how that works. I have not had one in years, but even I want to have one last Twinkie. Too bad.
I can see someone on death row wanting one for his last meal. Do they give him a stay of execution while they search for one?
That reminds me of the TV show Raising Hope, when the baby’s mom was on death row, she asked for a McRib and a Shamrock Shake from McDonalds, and since they aren’t usually available at the same time, she was able to wait.
Smart woman!!
I stopped eating sugary goodness a year ago, so this doesn’t upset me too bad, I kinda feel sorry for my kids though. Every once in we would spoil them by buying a crap load of goodies, now hostess stuff will leave a void in those times. BTW, when do you need the 1 or 100 guest strips, I should have mine done this week.
This week is great!!
*Tear-o-frosting slowly rolling down cheek*
No Twinkie bailout?! *sigh*
Too big to fail? Now you are just too damn big…bwahhahahah
It’s probably only a matter of time before another company buys them out or creates a knock-off product. Nature and business abhor vacuums, so we’ll probably be seeing Twinkies from another company (or “Twenkeez”) soon enough.
If Little Debbie was smart, they would buy the name and recipe and become voltron!
I like Twinkles myself for the knock off name.
I wont lie, I had my wife buy me one last box of their donuts! They were always sitting on the counter upon visits to my grandmothers! I had one donut [okay 5] for her! [grin]
Viva La Hostess! …soon to be [maybe] Grupo Bimbo! [that name is amusing]
Grupo Bimbo sounds like a name of a donut maker in Mexico. When we went there we got all the local food…stomachs be damned.
I was never really a big fan of Twinkies… sad that so many people have to lose their jobs, though! The management lays all of the blame for the closing on unions, but the CEO had given himself a nice raise from $750,000 to $2,250,000, and then they offered their employees a contract cutting their wages up to an extra 32%. From what I understand, the last six CEO’s didn’t even have experience running a baked goods company! All in all, what a lousy situation.
That’s so typical of these big company CEO’s. They line their own pockets & at the same time expect the workers to take a cut. I lost my job due to financial cut backs because of falling profits. None of the high paid executives at the top were affected.
That truly is the shame. If we are all in it together. Let’s all suffer a little bit. At least do the sneaky executive thing and get little salary and a whole crap load of stock
Love the panic on Twinkie’s face & the hunger on the chasers face.
Thanks Tony….Twinkie came together quick. Had to do a few renditions of the fat boy.
My wife has been going ballistic searching for Twinkies around town. They’re nowhere to be found (except on ebay at $100 a box). Personally, I’ve never had the taste for the things although I can eat one if you forced me to. Now that they may be gone forever, it’s like I’m fiending for one.
Take a trip to Canada, where Twinkies have found refuge and are still being made.
I’m like Scott…I need the icing of a Zingers
I’m not sure if we have zingers up here. Don’t remember ever seeing them.
They used to have the peanuts kids promoting them.
Still don’t remember them, or their commercials.
Must be a USA thing
I grew up with Twinkies. I honestly thought they’d be around forever.
Even if they quit baking them.
They are around…just in your stomach
This one hits home, but not because I am a Twinkie addict. When I was still new to Cincinnati, my temp service sent me on a one day job to Swallen’s on Red Bank Road. My job? To don a full size Twinkie The Kid costume and dance around out front and hand out coupons.
I don’t think I have eaten one since……
Pictures???? We need pictures. Swallens was the go to store (along with Service Mechandise in Tri County
I have not seen a SM in ages.
No one has
Hostess is back in negotiations with the union one last time. This could be the best marketing ploy in recent history!
Does that mean webdonuts aren’t the snack of the future?
We could only hope to make a tiny fraction of what twinkies have!
So, apparently the word Twinkie in the title was enough to send you to spam in the SIB. (Why does it not work against hatemailers?) I wondered why I came by, and you had a new one without an email. You were in good company…there were six more Twinkie posts keeping this one warm.
I think it is more because my email is yahoo and it isn’t the same as beartoons.com extension. I have been meaning to change it.
I hope another company buys the recepie and starts to make them again.
They will
Damn! Great cartoon… wish I could have used it for my homage to Twinkies today.
Always a bridesmade, never a bride. Well, except those two prior errors which I like to forget. Except in the Spring where the flowers copious;y bloom in two certain spots in the back yard…
We’re also out of everything Hostess here in Reno, with the exception of 10 boxes containing strawberry cupcakes last seen at Wal-Mart.
Ugh. didn’t like that flavor when I was a kid.
should have been quicker on the draw (get it? get it?) posting on the Terrible Twinkie Tragedy of 2012. Would have loved to have linked your ‘toon
Well that’s what you get showing up a day late..haha
AS I mentioned…only thing left on the shelves were the 100 calorie packs…
Hey I posted this ON SUNDAY!!
Yep. Heard about it Saturday but due to f’d up circumstances couldn’t get to writing until today.
to wit: loaned my car to the Demon Seed’s (my 19 year old daughter) best friend. She took it into the WORST part of town (meth and gangs yeah baby) unbeknownst to me. Was supposed to only use it for work and grocery shopping.
Thugs beat in both passenger side windows with rocks and totally destroyed the back window as well.
Was up from 3:00 am (picking up the car and begging said Demon Seed friend to go to the hospital) until the following night. Her friend was taken by ambulance.
So… my fab ’93 (Executive!) Lincoln Continental (read: boat) was left in the scary apartment lot, sans windows. Apparently after the destruction someone ELSE attempted to steal the car as the steering column was destroyed.
So yeah, I was tad busy. In no mood to write either.
The kids (as in daughters friend and her friend in the car, are paying for the repairs…should be done by the week after Thanksgiving.
Please send donations of food and rides to the doc appointments -grin-.
Fab excuse or what. And ALL TRUE.
Crap, you still beat me to the punch though.
Need turkey… and Twinkies
Addendum: better yet, has been raining and snowing since the night it happene. Good times!
When it snows, it pours.
Wow what a weekend. So is she off the meth then too? haha j/k
so sad about the twinkie. So it is true they have an experation date.
It is but probably only for liability
I used to run a cake route for Dolly Madison Cake company which was owned by Interstate Brands corporation who later bought Hostess. I am afraid that if there aren’t any twinkies there won’t be any zingers either. (I have a lot of background and history…maybe not so much future.)
Thanks for the post on Google+. I do appreciate all the support from my internet friends.
Well that explains why I haven’t seen a zingers commercial in a long time.
When I worked for Dolly Madison the only time they advertised on TV was when there was a Peanuts Special on TV.
Which was at least Halloween and Christmas
Love the cartoon, Bear! On the news they filmed a bunch of people shoving cases of twinkies into their carts. Good thing they have enough preservatives to give them a shelf life of 1000+ years…
I would love to be preserved like that. Maybe I could be on the Bodies Exhibit tour
Happy Thanksgiving Bearman to you and your family. Looks like there won’t be any Twinkie Cakes for dessert this year.
At some of the churches where I have been the Twinkie Cake was very popular. You cut the twinkies in half, put pineapple and vanilla pudding over one layer of twinkie halves, put the other layer of twinkie halves on top of that and then you cover them with vanilla pudding and top with pineapple.
I don’t think this was a low calorie diet item.
Now that I finally like pineapple, I might indulge. Up until this year I didn’t like the stuff.
Hey Bearman!
Just wanted stop by and apologize, as I had a severe brain cramp and accidently deleted your wonderful comment on my blog post today.
I managed to answer it, because I had so thoroughly enjoyed everyone’s answer I managed to memorize the basic outline of everyone’s comment while I was reading
No problem. Sometimes I should delete my own comments haha
I believe one day people will be damning the fact there are no twinkies after the world has a nuclear fall out. Just kidding