Hostess Brands, maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, is seeking bankruptcy protection, blaming its pension and medical benefits obligations, increased competition and tough economic conditions…
The privately held company, based in Irving, Texas, said it will be able to maintain routine operations thanks to a $75 million financing commitment from a group of lenders led by Silver Point Capital…
The company said it does not anticipate any disruptions in production or delivery of its breads or cake products and said its popular brands, which also include Drake’s, Ding Dongs and Ho Hos, will still be available.
Hostess said it is looking to “create a sustainable cost structure with competitive employee benefit plans.” It also hopes to modernize its systems, fleets and plants to keep pace with customer needs.
“This company has tremendous potential if we can remove the barriers to success,” Driscoll said.
Ever consider that a possible barrier to success might be continuing to produce nothing but crap food?
Oh, come on you new age hippies! There’s nothing wrong with eating the occasional Twinkie. Not a health food, to be sure, no worse than lots of other things out there. I eat one about once every six months, and enjoy the hell out of it. But I’m not going to glam down 14 a week.
The problem is eating them (or McDonalds or KFC or Coca-Cola or rib eye steak or baked potatoes or whole wheat tofu with alfalfa sprouts and olive oil on it for that matter) to excess.
Twinikes are a unique American product and are as Archie Bunker put it, “white soul food”.
The Hostess company’s problems stem more from the short sighted management problems so pervasive in American business, including but not limited to, promising future benefits that they had no idea how to pay for.
Did you get the first and second items list?
• pension and
• medical benefits obligations
Nixon and Reagan were just kicking the problems down the road by making the deal with Humana.
The problems have rolled as far as they can.
I got it. I wonder if they can outsource twinkies?
Ever consider that a possible barrier to success might be continuing to produce nothing but crap food?
…Or the fact that every time any large company (not just Hostess – who makes Twinkies and Wonder Bread) shows a profit that it almost never goes back into the company infrastructure?
I swear! It’s like being on board the S.S. Titanic and not paying attention to that big thud. It’s dismissed as “business as usual” where even the first class passengers don’t help – or especially!
The consensus seems to be to let them sink if they are so arrogant, blind or stupid as to not make any (non life threatening) personal sacrifices. Who cares about one tiny little boat or a company that produces nothing but “crap food”? I don’t know about you, but everything I eat just turns to “crap” anyway. Right?
It’s not like China or even a third world country won’t fill the need for “crap”. And it’s not like Americans or anyone else will stop consuming “crap” either. Right?!
(Ever wonder why “right” is usually a question and “left” is usually a statement? It’s a lot like asking for someone’s money or telling them to hand it over.)
The Greeks seem to be in danger of being unable to consume aspirin because or bad choices. Parents are abandoning children. I’d say we could end up learning how to go hungry in fact many claim as much as 1/5th of the population is but that seems more than a little high.
And children, historians that day marked the second bankruptcy procedure of The Hostess Corporation as the beginning of the downfall of the human race into abject poverty and starvation.
It was because of this single event that the dominant human life form began to decline and allow ant society to flourish.
Now dwindled down to a few feral animals they eek out the existence in caves and small growth forests. But be careful if you encounter any as they can spread diseases.
-No. 780,512,000,010,506, Ant Historian
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Hostess ® Ding Dongs ®
Ding Dongs – enrobed with chocolate coating, with rich and majestic crème filling, you can’t help but feel like royalty when you bite into one. In fact, when they were first introduced, they were actually called King Dons in some parts of the country (and Big Wheels in some regions),
The name Ding Dong came from the chiming bells used in Hostess’ first television commercials and you’ll be singing a happy tune every time you polish off a package. Nibble them slowly, like a king or queen, and savor the creamy goodness of every morsel, or bite right into that creamy center and get a mouthful of chocolate goodness.
A Ding Dong Ditch, as defined by Wikipedia, involves knocking on the front door (or ringing the doorbell of) a victim, then running away before the door can be answered. The game goes by many different names in various other countries and has been played since the 19th century.
Ding Dong Ditch? We always called it Nigger Knockin’
Here in Joyzee we have a loud curse which I heard yet again last night.
The “‘Rican doorbell” which consists of at least one microcephalic, semi-simian, little fuckin’ greasy [expletive deleted, {and I write fuck with impunity, alacrity and delight so you know its some pretty bad language,}] who leans on the fuckin’ horn at two o’ fuckin’ clock in the fuckin’ morning so his [expletive deleted] purulent, pustule covered friend can come out to his fuckin’ junker and get in.
I swear if they allowed concealed carry in Joyzee, or let me snipe from my balcony, he wouldn’t be pulling away from any fuckin’ curb.
I’d be throwing that now quiet sack of shit into a dumpster and giving a .50 caliber bullet riddled hunk o’ junk to a scrap dealer.
That car is such a scabrous slag heap, so desperately in need of an exhaust system, that it drowns out the a garbage truck as its making its rounds.
Lazy shits can’t get out of their pos to knock on a door like a f’in human. I feel you pain msbpod.
I was once a wayward boy who like you did the ring and run. My version included a brown paper bag with dog shit in it lit on fire. We’d hide in the shrubs and watch. Adrenaline junkie.
When I had my own home the friendly neighborhood kiddies pulled the same stunt on me. I guess it’s true, what goes around comes around. I had a good laugh while the wife was concerned about the small flames on our porch.
I was once a wayward boy who like you did the ring and run.
Then I took a bullet to the knee and now I am a police officer.
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About once every month or two, when they’re on sale at my local market, I buy a Hostess snack. I like the little chocolate donuts, the honey buns, HoHos and DingDongs. About once a year I’ll get some Twinkies or chocolate cupcakes. And I have to say, Hostess snacks (and Wonder Bread) may be crap, but at least they’re better than the Little Debbie crap
When I was a kid, these cost a dime. Now I only buy one when they come down from $1.49 to $1.00 apiece. I guess that makes me a geezer, but it also illustrates one of the top favorite geezer themes: inflation is theft! Lazy, undisciplined fiscal policies, kicking the can down the road, etc. all tend to devalue the currency over time. And all the political parties, industry, labor, the financial sector, etc. are all equally at fault.
It’s too big to fail. It’s part of the fabric of Americana. We should beg chairman Obama to bail this company out! http://tinyurl.com/266aksn
A typical theme in today’s labor unions. Companies are now saying they cannot afford them and are trying to get out of those pension commitments. Its a sign of the times.
Maybe they aren’t selling as well as they used to because every supermarket in the country has a high-end bakery right at the front door, while the low-margin packaged stuff like Wonder Bread is shoved way in the back.
No, that’s too simple.
“A man’s gotta have his twinkies”
“Mark my words, this twinkie thing ain’t over”
http://youtube.com/watch?v=7BdXZPcE3eA
I’m skeptical that the company’s problems stem solely from union wages and benefits. The unions gave back significant wages and benefits so Interstate Bakeries (which became Hostess Brands) could exit bankruptcy in 2007 and they are still being paid according to the terms of those contracts. Now Hostess claims the wage and benefits package is too rich for their blood and they need to again cut both so they can stay afloat. Hostess has faced a huge problem for more than a decade, that being they produce a line of products that Americans desire less and less as time goes on, their products are perceived to be ‘junk food’ and when they try to price those products higher to reflect rising costs their revenue drops as people will pay for cheap junk, but they will not pay for expensive junk. I don’t see a way out for Hostess. Their debt load is very high, their facilities and equipment are outdated and desperately need to be replaced which can’t happen under the debt load…the problems go on and on. Stock up on your favorite snacks folks, in my opinion, this will not end well for Hostess.
Millions of years from now, archaeologists will be digging in the ruins of North America, and they’ll unearth a tasty treat so well preserved that they’ll suspect that their digging site has been contaminated with modernity. They may never realize that it was produced in a completely different era by early ape-like creatures known as homo sapiens who, although primitive beings, invented wonderfully advanced chemical preservatives and showcased these chemicals in a delightful product called “Twinkie.”
Mitt Romney has an even higher calling than the presidency. He and Bain Capital need to save America’s great iconic Hostess company so it can be preserved as well as its snack cakes.