Say good bye to Twinkies. Say so long to Ho-Ho's and Wonder Bread. And say good bye to 18,000 unionized Hostess employees who said no to ownership of 25% of the company in exchanged for a temporary 8% reduction in wages and benefits. Apparently the company going through bankruptcy court wasn't sufficient proof that the company could no longer afford the current compensation package.
Yesterday the employees mounted a union strike and, concurrently, Hostess announced the dissolution of the company, citing the lack of capital to survive an employee strike.
Personally, I won't miss them. Ever since the government began levying mandates that Hostess cut out the lard and transfats in their recipes all of their sweet snacks taste gummy. Ugh. Same thing for their Wonder Bread. That moist gumminess is one of the reasons I gave up eating white bread, and though I tried many times to tolerate the rubbery texture of their Ho-Ho's and cupcakes none of them tempt me now.
The same thing is true for Ritz Crackers, by the way. About ten years ago Kraft Foods stop using lard in their Ritz crackers and they now have the taste and consistency of cardboard. Just another of our favorite childhood snacks lost to government nannyism.
The Hostess company says they'll try to sell their products to another food maker. Perhaps China will buy the product name and, as they did with baby formula, add some bizarre ingredient that cuts production costs. They'll probably succeed since the brand name endures for kids from one to ninety years old.....at least until a herd of foodies die from "diesomephilosone" poisoning. (I just made that name up). What would be true irony would be China buying the company and integrating lard back into the recipe. Since the FDA only rides herd over U.S. companies it just might work!
So now, thanks to the Teamsters Union, the government can add an additional 18,000 unemployed workers to those 78,000 additional unemployed that somehow didn't get reported on the Friday before last Tuesday's election. I'm sure that must have just been a government oversight. When the latest unemployment numbers got reported late we saw a huge 430,000 additional workers who lost their jobs last week.
Oh well, when these Hostess employees get their Food Stamp cards next week they'll have the means to buy a gallon of milk and a box of Twinkies as they sit at their kitchen table and wonder how it all went wrong.
How about Little Debbie buying the Hostess lineup?
ReplyDeleteCould happen! Hadn't thought of that but it's a good idea.
ReplyDeleteIt sounded like "Hostess", in the later years, was owned by a much larger investment group who really had no emotional tie to the product whatsoever, just looking at the bottom line and no further. The employees had no emotional tie to the company either, just a paycheck and the union, well need I say more. Myself, the consumer, dress out substantially greater than I did when I enjoyed a twinkie or two with lunch so I stay away from them altogether these days. That said, it sure is sad to see another great American icon disappear off the horizon, AGAIN. Just happens so often now, young people don't care, old folks can't do anything about it, conglomerates just see another write off and our country becomes a little less than it was yesterday. It really is sad to me.
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