Truly tragic. While I believe that unions serve a valuable purpose, clearly they shot themselves in the foot this time.

In a statement, Hostess said its bakery operations have been suspended at all plants and that it would lay off most of its 18,500 workers to focus on selling its assets. It said it has filed a motion with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court seeking permission to close its business and sell its assets, including 33 bakeries and 565 distribution centers.

The move shuts down one of the nation's oldest and largest producers of baked goods. Founded in 1930, it produces such well-known brands, aside from Twinkies, as Ding-Dongs, Ho Ho's, Sno Balls and Donettes, not to mention Wonder bread, which the company says is the best-selling white bread in the United States.

I expect that another bakery will ask to buy the recipe for some of their products, especially the bread since it is such a winner.

Or, as Nancy and Mom do, bake 'em from scratch. :)

Tastykake is still around too if you're on the eastern side of the country.

quote from the other thread ... reminds me of Bain Capital. Sounds like the vultures got the twinkies.

We already enjoy Weston's Country Harvest Pita's in central Ohio. :)

Yes I can see why the "talking point" of the day would be blame the unions.

Frankly as a foodie I would hardly consider Hostess as "bakery", and yes I bake ... which I guess earns me and others that bake the scorn of some.

More like "job cremators"

Both companies say they will continue with the brand and the products and will consider expanding in order to ship Hostess products from Canada into the US.

I can't eat stuff like that, anyway. It makes me sick. There's very little I consume that doesn't come from nature. Lab created food "products" are just too fake and chemical filled for me.

I do feel for the workers, though... avarice will be the downfall of this nation, and the ruination of our planet.

Still spouting off?
The election is ovah!
The people of Ohio and across the nation know that the auto loans were the courageous and correct action to take to save that industry.
Only a few sour grapes like yourself continue to wine.

Hyrogenated products promote cardiovascular disease, cancer and irritability.

Interesting that the article doesn't tell you that the top four executives received 80% raises in 2011. Also in the 2004 bankruptcy, the unions agreed to cuts in compensation and pensions.

Oh well.

-Ron-

Like Ohiomom, I also bake so I don't see any big loss when it comes to Twinkies or Wonder Bread. Just a major loss for the employees.

The labels of any and all products that may contain hydrogenated ingredients should be read before purchase, passed over if they do. Anything like frosted baked goods, candies or processed cheeses that contain cement-like or otherwise finely textured components are highly likely to be hydrogenated. But I find hydrogenated oils listed in a high number of so-called foods, not always just obvious suspects.

"I would rather hit myself in the head than buy at Walmart"

Best price around for organic almond "milk". A buck's a buck.

And I love the chocolate Donettes.

pics on Sodahead

I'm sure you could alter the recipes, to make their stuff way less gross.

Someone will still manufacture and distribute these products, or numerous similar alternatives.

Weston's have said they are not interested in buying the rights for Wonder Bread in the US but Saputo has said it may look at buying the name and some assets in the States for the cake goods.

One way or another anyone who wants a Twinkie will still be able to get one.

In fact the comments after the articles are savage towards the employees that lost their jobs, pensions and probly' their homes etal next.

SMH

After thinking about this for a few days, it's hard to believe the surface story, that a huge conglomerate like this is such a house of cards. Twinkies or Wonder Bread having a problem with a baking union should not affect the whole parent company. Isn't that why they make divisions? Did all of the divisions use the same union? Are there no competing unions? The cliche about putting all of one's eggs in one basket seems to have been ignored if this is really what brought them down. Plenty of people would happily bake Twinkies and bread for minimum wage, especially in places where the cost of living is not so high.

Totally agree, Ohiomom. The disparity in wages for the average workers who actually do all of the work vs. the corporate positions in their companies is atrocious. How do these companies expect people to patronize them if they can't earn enough to pay their bills after working all week?

I never liked them; I put them in the same category as Peeps. Unsatisfying and to be avoided at any price. I did however, like the chocolate cupcakes if I remember that last one I had sometime in the 50's.

Oh, Twinkie with your golden hue,
You have delicious goop in you.
There you are! Were you waiting long,
Between Sno-balls and stale Ding Dong?
...
My friends all think I'm kinda kinky
Cause my role model is a twinkie.
But they don't know what we've been through.
Dear Twinkie, I can count on you.

I tell my troubles as I bite.
You never tell me, "That's not right."
You listen to each foolish fear,
Then slowly, deliciously disappear.

I hold you close when we're alone
And think the thoughts that are my own.
Then turn to you, my dear sweet yummie.
You clear my mind, tickle my tummie.

Your outside is a little plain,
But inside you are "mellow lane."
I like you better than these folks,
Who look at me and then make jokes.

People should be more like you.
You don't judge the things folks do.
Inside is where your beauty lies.
Within the plain, there's sweet surprise.
�Grandpa Tucker

Story at link.

Yup, all the unions fault, of course.

Even as it blamed unions for the bankruptcy and the 18,500 job losses that will ensue, Hostess already gave its executives pay raises earlier this year. The salary of the companys chief executive tripled from $750,000 to roughly $2.5 million, and at least nine other executives received pay raises ranging from $90,000 to $400,000. Those raises came just months after Hostess originally filed for bankruptcy earlier this year.

In the board room.

You know, unions give it up and take "personal responsibility for yourselves", stop the demands of the corporate, cause we need the money not you?

Must be some kind of GOP thing, the head honchos take all the money, throw the employees to the street and blame the employees cause the business failed because of the union demands.

Sick, Sick, Sick.

This is 2012, we watch what we eat, Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Ho Ho's are no longer a normal part of the American lunch box diet. Most companies change with the times but this company did not.

Instead they pulled a Bain, added dept and instead of moving forward with good management and new products the employees will take a major hit and the very bad managers who couldn't lead the company into the future will get raises and great severence packages. There needs to be laws to keep this from happening over and over again. You should not be able to go bankrupt after paying inflated wages and bonuses to your management while your labor force is screwed.

But,...

If I own something, you'd think I'd be the one who gets to decide about its future? No?

If I owned something, I'd like to be able to decide if I can make more money by liquidating it or continuing to operate it as a business. No?

Somewhere in the USA, there's a bakery ready to produce tomorrow's Twinkies if the demand is there. They'll be hiring.

Hay

Businesses succeed and businesses fail.

That's how it is supposed to work.

Sometimes businesses that succeed are closed down.
That's entirely at the discretion of the owners.

If people lose jobs, there are plenty more, right?
I mean, we were told there would be.

Just the sheer number of different brands and varieties of snacks makes it an extremely competitive market.

The same applies to bread. The variety and competition is incredibe. More and more people are also shopping for price. Locally, Friehoffers and store brand white bread outsell Wonderbread by large margins, plus they have more frequent sales and promotions.

Sometimes businesses that succeed are closed down.
That's entirely at the discretion of the owners.

Then why blame the union? If it was a successful business that they don't want to run anymore, why blame the union for causing its failure?

If it's not successful because they haven't kept up with what the consumer wants, why blame the union?

The union already agreed to concessions the 1st time they went through bankruptcy. Yet the executives gave themselves huge raises. Now they are taking big bonuses while they shut it all down. I know, you don't see the problem with that. A lot of people do see the problem with that.

I keep pondering this "job creating" meme.

Jobs need to be destroyed!!!! Isn't that what we really want?

Humankind's progress is measured by how much more we can produce with fewer and fewer workers. How much we can produce with cheaper and cheaper methods. That's what we want, you fools!

Getting there means we're going to have to constantly be reinventing ourselves. Learn new skills, that sort of thing.

We will NEVER run out of work to do. (Take a look at my house.)

I always want more. And that's not greed. You want to grub around the woods for your daily food, go for it. Not me, I want it on a silver platter!!!

Hay

The union already agreed to concessions the 1st time they went through bankruptcy. Yet the executives gave themselves huge raises. Now they are taking big bonuses while they shut it all down. I know, you don't see the problem with that. A lot of people do see the problem with that."

Well said!

You can't tell me Twinkies weren't making a profit, for everybody but the people actually baking them. A lot of people eat a lot of Twinkies, no matter what the general consensus may be. A profitable company going out of business is definitely a curiosity worth investigating.

The bankrupt baker told The Wall Street Journal that money taken out of workers' paychecks, intended for their retirement funds, was used for company operations instead. Hostess, which was under different management at the time the diversions began in August 2011, said it does not know how much money it took.

Hostess executives have spent the last several weeks crusading for the right to cut employee pensions while also divvying up retention bonuses for company executives who will oversee the company's liquidation.

Now it turns out some of those pensions have already been diverted to cover other costs.

More thieves, who think that everything they steal is rightfully theirs.

Good riddance to twinkies.

Sounds an awful lot like what our dear "progressive" government is doing with the Social Security money that they took out of my paycheck for the past 50 years or so.

With pretty much the same result. Diverted all that money to their own interests and left us bankrupt.

Moral: if you want to have any hope of keeping your hard earned money, don't give it to ANYBODY to hold for you. NOBODY can watch after my money better than ME. Certainly not you and your elected officials.

When does Obama leave for his Hawaii vacation? Dodd and Frank, they're doing OK with their retirement? Bill Clinton still being driven back and forth in a chauffeured car between his office and his nice home in that wealthy enclave in New York?

I'll still take my chances in the stock market. Overall, it does better than the alternative.

Hay

Dunno about that, Hay.

If the alternative is being a politician and living that guaranteed, chauffeured, extremely comfortable retirement... seems like their retirement plan is much better protected than the stock market OR the average shmoe's pension. They ain't hurtin', if you know what I mean.

*

Amen.
Amen.
Amen.

Unfortunately, FDR believed that the the government was smarter, more disciplined and more responsible than citizens were, and so we have had confiscated earnings with the promise of getting it back in our old age.

Decades of Democrats, and some Republicans, have agreed with this takeover of our individual responsibilities to care for and provide for our own retirements.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard older people complain that they just can't make it on social security.
DUH.

It wasn't meant to provide for every need in retirement.
Unfortunately, that's how the government sees so many social programs.

Personal responsibility has become a dirty word--and because it has, now look where we are.

First and foremost, that's how the government sees their OWN social programs...golden pensions, golden healthcare packages, golden expense accounts.

And that's probably the only thing they are nonpartisan about.

And that's probably the only thing they are nonpartisan about.

*

Touche, HG.

Very telling who is exempt from Obamacare, isn't it?

Are they exempt from Obamacare? or is it that they have proof of their own coverage already?

Is that all of Obamacare? For example, can they be refused coverage due to pre-existing conditions or are they covered by that?

I'm referring to the companies that have been favored with exemptions--and perhaps individuals, as well, based on religious objections.

That all remains to be seen in practice but it's already on the table, and there is an entire list of companies that have been given exemptions, so Obamacare does not apply to everyone.

What a payoff.

-Ron-