R.I.P. Twinkies

Interesting.....I have thoughts, but will keep them to myself....dont want to piss anyone off.

It takes a lot of TRUCKS to make and deliver Twinkies.
 

Boy is that guy that spent $405 for twinkies feel bad when they are back on the shelf in a week or two!

I was in downtown cincy the past couple of weeks and it was always a wonderful drive by smell at the hostess bakery plant.  This time as I drove by I realized.... Cincinnati Smells Bad!!!!!!
The scent from all those baked goods were masking some strange River/Industrial/Pollution smell.
 
I bought a pack of the chocolate cream twinkies the other day at WM.
YUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
 
I will miss the fruit pies although Little Debbie makes those pies and they are almost the same flavor and the chocolate ones are actually better than the hostess ones were.
 
Little Debbie makes everything that Hostess makes and the flavors are very close to hostess.  So in the end not much of a loss.

Great to see you my friend, CajunKing!

The New Yorker article made some valid points that I had in mind as well. There is a distribution of responsibility here that in all fairness has to be reckoned with. As the article so well illuminates, times have changed and markets do as well. White bread and packaged snack cakes were very post war products that were staples of the 50's and 60's when many of us were young and made the bulk of our bagged lunches. Those times started to change during the 70's when many of the bakers starting to concentrate on grain breads and white bread was starting to get a bad rap. By the time my kids were in school, the displays of individual snack cakes near check-out isles were already gone leaving only packaged boxes like Little Debbie on the end of the bread isles which were already dominated by multi-grain bread products. Eventually those snack cake packages were replaced by an Entenamen's display. Now packing a lunch for a kid with a package of snack cakes or bag of chips and a sandwich made with white bread is an anathema to lunch monitors in some schools and will prompt a note to the home from what I've heard if your kid's lunch is deemed "unhealthy". The article points out that management should have moved with the times and into healthier products which they did miserably. These are good points instead of completely blaming labor and the economy. Then there is an issue that
as a Floridian, I'm keenly aware of but doesn't seem to be entering into this discussion, but none the less has severely impacted the confection industry's bottom line....Big Sugar political interests. The price of sugar is fixed here in the states much in part to a handfull of very powerful sugar producers/families here in Fl. With congressonal help,lobbiests, and political contributions, they have kept sugar prices much higher then the world market and have strangled the confection industries having no access to sugar at world market prices. I'm sure that sugar prices have factored in considerably too as another high cost outside labor. There's plenty of reasons, but before soley blaming the greed of labor, there's a lot more to this picture. We're also an aging and graying society. Our kids have been brainwashed that "white" grain bread products and sugary/salty snacks are unhealthy even though they consume it heartily in other less conspicuous products. Us older folks with the money to afford this stuff no longer could or should eat it with dietary concerns such as diabetes or no longer have the sweet tooth for products of our youth.  Convergence of many factors. Maybe a foreign company with less restrictions and access to cheaper sugar can make a go of this. Several confection companies have relocated to Canada and Mexico just for this reason.

It's amazing, Dawn, but when things come together it usually seems as if there is no other way out.  Liked your post.

Looks like stupid won.....
 
http://hostessbrands.com/Closed.aspx
 
I hear Teamster President Hoffa wants to show the Bakery Union President a construction site at The Meadowlands.

 

Michael Hoffman
 But I've been eating Devil Dogs since I left the ark when things dried out. When Hostess took over Drake's Cakes I cringed, and the company never distributed Drakes stuff here in Ohio, so I've had to get my Devil Dogs imported from Connecticut. 
The closest I can come to a Devil Dog here is something called Zingers, and I stopped at the Wonder outlet near me this morning to lay in a supply before they're all gone. The woman working there said she's supposed to keep working till all the product is gone and then, "When I found this job I was looking for work, so, what the heck ... ."

 Messed up, that Drake's needed a good national owner to spread and popularize them more, and they get bought out by archrival Hostess, and while they do get sent to some new markets, they still are not promoted as much, and yet, now, the only thing to come of being bought out is that they end up going down with the whole ship.
 
The worst case scenario I worry about is someone buyng Hostes only, and letting Drake's fall by the wayside. On the other hand, if they are split up like that, and one company buys Hostess, and the other buys Drake's; then the competition would be on again!

mamaduck43

And for those Drake fans - - I can remember the aroma of Drake's bakery in Bloomfield tantalizing my nose on the way home from swim team practice in Oakland - after we crossed the Bloomfield bridge - - and if the aroma wasn't working, the parade of ducks across the rooftop certainly was entertaining...
Sigh......

When did they have a bakery out there? It had to be in recent years after the takeover by Hostess (IBC). But I didn't know they built new plants for Drake's. I thought they just shipped them frozen, anywhere beyond the bakery areas in the northeast.

jman
 
I talked to someone today who is in the industry and there's a strong feeling that Bimbo Bakeries USA, a subsidiary of Grupo Bimbo, a Mexican company, will buy the Hostess brand.  Bimbo already owns Sara Lee, Entenmanns, Earth Grains, and many other brands.

If Bimbo buys them, that would truly be a monopoly. Hostess and Drake’s would now probably be squeezed on the Marinelas [Bimbo's snack cake brand] racks that have popped up in bodegas across NYC. They would also monopolize the NYC bread market. Since Stroehmann’s [another bread company they own] already dominates the shelves over Wonder (And even the Bimbo label itself becoming more popular), I wonder which one, if any, would be phased out.
 
Other potential buyers are said to be  McKee Foods (Little Debbie); Flowers Foods, large southern company (Blue Bird, Mrs Freshley’s cake, and a large portion of the Sunbeam bread franchise, and also last year bought Tastykake), and Canadian company Weston Foods. 
 
http://erictb.wordpress.c...the-kids-last-roundup/

I remember Buffalo Bob flogging the stuff on the Howdy Doody Show. I was sold, and I remember thinking myself really smart when at about age 6, I figured out how they got the creme inside.
 
Years later when I was in college, Bob came to our school for a show. I took some pictures (besides doing work for the college, I was a "stringer" for several newspapers). Bob wanted some of the pictures which came out very well. He ordered from proofs, and I printed up some 8x10s. I never got paid.

One of our Thanksgiving guests brought a basket of desserts:
 

 
No one ate even one.  They just took them home.

You should have taken that basket of goodies home and sold them on E-bay! 
Those Twinkies would probably fetched you a small fortune!  

My Siblings are getting a big box of Tasty-Cakes!  Figure they alread wernt bankrupt once.....maybe we can corner that market!

Was able to get a selection of lemon pies, zingers, cupcakes, ding dongs and what not from the thrift store before they were completely gone. Sad situation.
 
Here in Michigan Aunt Milles and the Bimbo brands (Sara Lee, Arnold, Brownberry, Thomas) absorbed all the Wonder shelf space and Little Debbie and Entenmann's (Bimbo) absorbed the Hostess space. In some places, the Hostess singles racks have been replaced with the Entenmann's singles.

I had an odd situation today-I had to buy bread!( I had snatched up as many loaves of Wonder bread as I could, and froze them) I am trying Butternut brand.While i rarely ate Wonder, that was Bob's favorite. Any suggestions as to what anyone else is using now?
 

Personally speaking, I never eat white bread. Haven't for probably 40 years. I'm not trying to preach to you. But, ever since I saw a sign outside an organic bakery in Fort Bragg, California, I stopped eating white bread. This sign simply stated, "The Whiter the Bread, The sooner You're Dead". I never ate white bread again
 
I like Eziekiel (brand) 4:9 "Food For Life" 100% organic flourless 7-sprouted grains bread. 
http://www.foodforlife.co...-sprouted-grains-bread
 
I know, some of you may laugh at me but eventually, I'll have the laugh.
 

If I never ate anything that was bad for me my life might be a lot longer, but a lot less enjoyable

ann peeples


I had an odd situation today-I had to buy bread!( I had snatched up as many loaves of Wonder bread as I could, and froze them) I am trying Butternut brand.While i rarely ate Wonder, that was Bob's favorite. Any suggestions as to what anyone else is using now?

Well, I didn't run out an get any Wonder Bread, (haven't touched it since I was a kid, and rarely then. We were a Sunbeam family). Down here in Indiana we have lots of the usual's, but I stick with Aunt Millie's nowadays. Their Multigrain is great and it doesn't have any HFCS in it. I usually get a couple at a time and freeze them. Then the kids work their way through them.

Thanks for the suggestions.......its not me who eats white bread-its Bob. He likes it, and thats the way it is. He doesnt eat alot, perhaps a loaf a week. I love whole grain, wheat, rye....just asking for a decent white bread suggestion.....

This is my go to white bread when I do get it
 
http://arnoldbread.com/pr...cialty/premium-italian

ann peeples


I had an odd situation today-I had to buy bread!( I had snatched up as many loaves of Wonder bread as I could, and froze them) I am trying Butternut brand.While i rarely ate Wonder, that was Bob's favorite. Any suggestions as to what anyone else is using now?

 
Looks like you're gonna need to try something else.  Butternut is part of Hostess.  We have eaten Butternut Harvest Wheat for years, so I've been looking for a replacement.  Next time I'm up the road, I may stop in Meijer and pick up a loaf of Aunt Millie's.  The Little Debbie vendor recommended it.

I know there are some breads out there made with white whole wheat flour. I buy King Arthur brand white whole wheat flour as my AP flour. Great for pancakes, etc.

Bruce Bilmes and Susan Boyle


Hostess Brands couldn't make a go of it, when all their expenses were factored in, including labor costs. They deserved to fail. That's the way capitalism works. Creative destruction, right? Their better run competitors, like Tastykake and Little Debbie, still operate. Better run companies will eventually make Twinkies, too.

Again, I agree totally.

Thanks, Kevaxe2k2-looks like something Bob can eat. Its available in our area!

ann peeples


Thanks for the suggestions.......its not me who eats white bread-its Bob. He likes it, and thats the way it is. He doesnt eat alot, perhaps a loaf a week. I love whole grain, wheat, rye....just asking for a decent white bread suggestion.....

Well, if they have Aunt Millie's in your neck of the woods they make a couple of good white breads. Even their multigrain is nice and squishy.

Aunt Millies makes a great multi grain

I haven't had my favorite Hostess product in five or six years, anyway ... they only made it in a few small parts of the country. While I wouldn't wish for any company to fail in this economic climate (where they are most likely to do so), perhaps somebody else will buy the recipes, and I'll be able to get my beloved raspberry-filled donuts from somebody who will sell them in more than three states!
 
Here's hoping!