The street value of Twinkies after the company closes

Don

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Possibly. But in terms of the product vacuum, that would get filled very quickly. Sara Lee, Nabisco, Keebler, God knows who else, are already paying rapt attention to this episode, and their product people no doubt already have contingency plans for mass-production of similar cheap crap snack foods aimed explicitly at the insatiable market in the U.S. for cheap crap snack foods.

caw
As a one-time aficionado of cheap crap snack foods, I'll note that there are competitors for practically every cheap crap snack food Hostess makes already. IIRC, I've even seen some Twinkie knock-offs. Maybe from Flowers or Bimbo? It may be a regional bakery. There's a lot of competition in the cheap crap snack food field.
 

clintl

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Flowers makes imitations of Hostess brands stuff under the Mrs. Freshley's label that make the Hostess Brands seem like fine cuisine by comparison. Maybe that's what you were thinking of.
 

Don

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Flowers makes imitations of Hostess brands stuff under the Mrs. Freshley's label that make the Hostess Brands seem like fine cuisine by comparison. Maybe that's what you were thinking of.

I think it's Flowers, but they use a different label around here. I had to look it up: Bluebird. Same cheap crap snack food, different name. Special emphasis on cheap.
 

Don

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I ended up at the Flowers web site looking for a brand name. If you watch this virtual bakery tour video, you'll see how Flowers is dealing with their union concerns. Short answer, the bakery is highly automated and staffed primarily by technicians. Sanitation and shipping are outsourced. They make a big deal out of all their labor-saving and error-preventing machinery. It's consumer-friendly on one level, but on another level it's a big raspberry to organized labor.
 

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So, the product lines will close down. The company will be liquidated. A year from now the products will be back with a "Made in South Korea" label on the bottom in fine print. A year after that, in a massive PR campaign the world's largest Twinkie, the size of an aircraft carrier will be sailed across the Pacific to San Francisco harbor where 50,000 rabid Twinkie fans are waiting, with forks and paper plates in hand.

But the PR campaign will take an odd turn as sharks, whales and other marine life, some previously unheard of, attracted by the floating spongy mass of sugary goodness have been eating away at it from below. It will sink below the waves in sight of the bridge, leaving only a greasy white filling slick to mark it's passage.

But wait, there's more. The event will change the dietary habits of pacific marine life for decades as hundreds of species of fish turn up with diabetes and an odd craving for fat surfers.

or not.
 

Gretad08

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So, the product lines will close down. The company will be liquidated. A year from now the products will be back with a "Made in South Korea" label on the bottom in fine print. A year after that, in a massive PR campaign the world's largest Twinkie, the size of an aircraft carrier will be sailed across the Pacific to San Francisco harbor where 50,000 rabid Twinkie fans are waiting, with forks and paper plates in hand.

But the PR campaign will take an odd turn as sharks, whales and other marine life, some previously unheard of, attracted by the floating spongy mass of sugary goodness have been eating away at it from below. It will sink below the waves in sight of the bridge, leaving only a greasy white filling slick to mark it's passage.

But wait, there's more. The event will change the dietary habits of pacific marine life for decades as hundreds of species of fish turn up with diabetes and an odd craving for fat surfers.

or not.

That's quite an imagination. Has anyone ever told you you should be a writer?
 

clintl

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It's consumer-friendly on one level, but on another level it's a big raspberry to organized labor.

"Consumer-friendly" is not how I would describe a company whose products are so bad that I avoid anything with their label on it even if it's the only thing left in the machine.
 

Don

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"Consumer-friendly" is not how I would describe a company whose products are so bad that I avoid anything with their label on it even if it's the only thing left in the machine.
I meant the video was consumer-friendly, in the saccharine-sweet way it presents their great accomplishment of improving consistency and quality while improving safety by reducing labor. It's a sales job on that level, pure and simple. On another level, if I were a union boss, I would get a totally different message.
 

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So, the product lines will close down. The company will be liquidated. A year from now the products will be back with a "Made in South Korea" label on the bottom in fine print. A year after that, in a massive PR campaign the world's largest Twinkie, the size of an aircraft carrier will be sailed across the Pacific to San Francisco harbor where 50,000 rabid Twinkie fans are waiting, with forks and paper plates in hand.

But the PR campaign will take an odd turn as sharks, whales and other marine life, some previously unheard of, attracted by the floating spongy mass of sugary goodness have been eating away at it from below. It will sink below the waves in sight of the bridge, leaving only a greasy white filling slick to mark it's passage.

But wait, there's more. The event will change the dietary habits of pacific marine life for decades as hundreds of species of fish turn up with diabetes and an odd craving for fat surfers.

or not.


I don't know. Seems as probable as anything else.
 

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Possibly. But in terms of the product vacuum, that would get filled very quickly. Sara Lee, Nabisco, Keebler, God knows who else, are already paying rapt attention to this episode, and their product people no doubt already have contingency plans for mass-production of similar cheap crap snack foods aimed explicitly at the insatiable market in the U.S. for cheap crap snack foods.

caw

... probably true. I wonder if Hostess has any patents on its products, over and above the recipes? E.g. on the design of the products: rectangular cream-filled. That might hinder duplication. But others have said there are already products like Twinkies out there already. So I suppose not. There probably still is some legal stuff to wrangle with, unless all that expires when a company goes under. Sara Lee is definitely licking her chops though in view of the news. That much more of a market share.
 

robeiae

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As a one-time aficionado of cheap crap snack foods, I'll note that there are competitors for practically every cheap crap snack food Hostess makes already. IIRC, I've even seen some Twinkie knock-offs. Maybe from Flowers or Bimbo? It may be a regional bakery. There's a lot of competition in the cheap crap snack food field.

Flowers makes imitations of Hostess brands stuff under the Mrs. Freshley's label that make the Hostess Brands seem like fine cuisine by comparison. Maybe that's what you were thinking of.
Little Debbie makes Cloud Cakes.

Once upon a time, Hostess cakes were the best, the freshest on the shelves. Not so anymore. For whatever reasons, quality has gone down, while price has gone up. Wonderbread in particular priced itself right off a lot of grocery store shelves.
 

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Little Debbie makes Cloud Cakes.

Once upon a time, Hostess cakes were the best, the freshest on the shelves. Not so anymore. For whatever reasons, quality has gone down, while price has gone up. Wonderbread in particular priced itself right off a lot of grocery store shelves.

I guess that explains how you can lose money making stuff that people love: change things so they don't love them anymore.
 

Don

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I guess that explains how you can lose money making stuff that people love: change things so they don't love them anymore.
I remember having a Hostess cupcake sometime after I reached adulthood and hadn't had one in years - the flavor was terrible, not at all what I remembered. Then I discovered the HFCS in the ingredients. I don't think they were using that back in the 60s. ;)

ETA: And rob nailed it with the Cloud Cakes. That's what I remember seeing.
 

robeiae

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Ho-hos individually wrapped in foil. Those were the absolute bomb. They melted in your mouth. Now, they're slightly smaller and come in two-packs wrapped in plastic on a little square of cardboard. And they they taste just like that square of cardboard.
 

backslashbaby

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... quite possibly so. Makes sense. Will pose a question though. Have there been large companies in the past that have folded, w/o resurrected offshoots? If so, then Hostess may go the way of the dodo bird too despite its enormity.

OMG, yes. The knitwear industry alone in this country has seen a very depressing level of complete oblivion of large companies. Of course, we still have a few big names, but there were many more.

Clark Howard had a relative that owned a big one. They were the good guys (as we all know now Clark is :D ), and it's really sad.

The competition with very cheap offshore companies was the biggest problem for knitwear. It's insane what some of those companies could make the product for. Of course, no labor standards (sweatshops), cost of labor, etc. explains how that can happen. Even with shipping to the foreign markets, they could just kick ass on price.
 

Don

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Ho-hos individually wrapped in foil. Those were the absolute bomb. They melted in your mouth. Now, they're slightly smaller and come in two-packs wrapped in plastic on a little square of cardboard. And they they taste just like that square of cardboard.
O. M. G. Yes! I remember. They were worth walking 5 miles to school and back in the snow, uphill each way, just to be able to eat lunch. In retrospect I imagine they contained enough calories to fuel that round trip, too. :)
 

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Ho-hos individually wrapped in foil. Those were the absolute bomb. They melted in your mouth. Now, they're slightly smaller and come in two-packs wrapped in plastic on a little square of cardboard. And they they taste just like that square of cardboard.

I didn't know that Ho-Hos were foil wrapped. I do recall Ding-Dongs being sold that way (pre HFCS for sure!)

The company marketed the snacks on the East Coast as Big Wheels, to avoid confusion with the Ring Ding, a similar (and pre-existing) treat by Drake's Cakes. The names were consolidated in 1987, when a short-lived merger of Drake's with Hostess' parent company (then Continental Baking Company) briefly resolved the Ring Ding/Ding Dong conflict. When the merged company broke up, however, Hostess was forced to cease, once again, using the Ding Dongs name in areas where Ring Dings were available. The compromise sound-alike name King Dons lasted until Interstate Bakeries Corporation, which had recently merged with Hostess' parent company, bought Drake's in 1998. The Hostess product is now sold under the name Ding Dongs throughout the United States. However, the snack is still sold as the King Don in Canada.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ding_Dong

Even a very young & truth-seeking Mags knew something was up when they kept changing the name.

PS One year (for one of the kid's b'day party) I made my own "Ding-Dongs" wrapped in foil & everything. They were a big hit!!
 

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Fox News is having a field day with the story. They relish Unions suffering and workers failing because Fox News hates it when the middle class stands up for itself.
 

Ken

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OMG, yes. The knitwear industry alone in this country has seen a very depressing level of complete oblivion of large companies. Of course, we still have a few big names, but there were many more.

Clark Howard had a relative that owned a big one. They were the good guys (as we all know now Clark is :D ), and it's really sad.

The competition with very cheap offshore companies was the biggest problem for knitwear. It's insane what some of those companies could make the product for. Of course, no labor standards (sweatshops), cost of labor, etc. explains how that can happen. Even with shipping to the foreign markets, they could just kick ass on price.

... that follows. I guess some companies were able to roll with the times and import labor. Clothing companies, particularly. Knitwear is probably a different entity though. More basic, I suppose, and easier for offshore start-ups to get a share of the market with low prices and compete with established companies. Business can be interesting.

ps My favorite Hostess snack as a kid was the chocolate cupcakes. The 'lemon' ones were tasty too. And man were they cheap. You felt like you were getting them for nothing when you walked out of the store. Wonder how much the 2-pack goes for nowadays? Probably a dollar and change.