Buh-bye twinkies

[pendell]

Hostess is closing its doors forever.

Nuts. I had a secret zombie apocalypse survival pan based around those little cakes. They have a shelf life of 50 years and so could keep as survival rations indefinitely. Plus, they could double as ammunition in a pinch.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Dallas-Dakota]

They will be no doubt, be bought by another company. And otherwise It's just a shame that I can't get them here over in the Netherlands.

[RandomNPC]

Theory from my coworkers.
The workers wouldn't take a permanent 8% pay cut. The owners closed the doors, and plan to wait whatever amount of time is legally mandatory, then will open up non-union under a different name.

And even twinkies go bad after a few weeks, it's just Hollywood hullabaloo that they last forever.

[Dr.Epic]

Hostess is closing its doors forever.

NO! NO! NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

[Starwulf]

Theory from my coworkers.
The workers wouldn't take a permanent 8% pay cut. The owners closed the doors, and plan to wait whatever amount of time is legally mandatory, then will open up non-union under a different name.

And even twinkies go bad after a few weeks, it's just Hollywood hullabaloo that they last forever.

Maybe outside the wrappers/box, but in their wrappers and box, they really do last as long as people say.

[Ravens_cry]

Never really liked them much to be honest, though I've only had them enough times that you could count on one hand of a kid who used to play with fireworks.

[JustPlayItLoud]

Well, I guess there goes my business plan of launching knock off Twinkies onto the market and calling them Twonkies.

Today is the day my dreams died.

But seriously folks, I would be sad if someone didn't buy up Twinkies. I don't eat them all the time (I'm more than fat enough), but I would miss the occasional Twinkie. Everything else I enjoy basically has an analogous product from another company, but Twinkies are just so iconic that it wouldn't feel right to buy the same product but not called Twinkies.

[Morph Bark]

There goes one item on my long list of things I wanted to eat before I turned 50.

[Winter_Wolf]

There goes one item on my long list of things I wanted to eat before I turned 50.

Don't feel too bad. You probably wouldn't be living to 50 if you did eat 'em. Twinkies are marketed as "food", but if you've ever had one, you might debate that point.

I used to eat 'em, but they truly are disgusting things.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

I ate a deep fried Twinkie once. And I had another twinkie once normally. The deep-fried one was palatable because when you get a deep-fried thing-on-a-stick you expect it to be horrible anyhow.

[KnightDisciple]

Hostess is closing its doors forever.

Nuts. I had a secret zombie apocalypse survival pan based around those little cakes. They have a shelf life of 50 years and so could keep as survival rations indefinitely. Plus, they could double as ammunition in a pinch.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Kind of been the writing on the wall for a couple years now.

Suffice to say, they had issues all across the board with not controlling spending, so it's not shocking they came to a point they couldn't continue.

Maybe outside the wrappers/box, but in their wrappers and box, they really do last as long as people say.

No. They do not. Speaking as someone who worked as a contractor for tech support at Hostess a couple of years ago (and was thus attendant at a few meetings with major execs present), the shelf life of their various cakes was, at that time, roughly 30 days (on average). This is partially due to a lack of dairy product in their construction, which decreases spoilage rate.
It was seen as a big initiative when they were working to increase shelf life to about 45 days, in an effort to expand the markets in various ways (that would require a longer supply chain, and thus a higher shelf life).
Please stop repeating "Twinkies last for years" as fact, it's an urban legend.

[Gnoman]

The company has been in bankruptcy for >10 years, and has been closing facilities left and right. They're pretty infamous around here for incredibly poor labor practices and have had many, many OSHA violations. (For example, maintenance workers were flatly forbidden to lock out equipment while working on it, despite such procedures being federally mandated.)

[Morph Bark]

Don't feel too bad. You probably wouldn't be living to 50 if you did eat 'em. Twinkies are marketed as "food", but if you've ever had one, you might debate that point.

I used to eat 'em, but they truly are disgusting things.

Eh, I've definitely have had worse things. If I were afraid of that, I wouldn't have a list of things I want to eat before I turn 50!

[KnightDisciple]

Don't feel too bad. You probably wouldn't be living to 50 if you did eat 'em. Twinkies are marketed as "food", but if you've ever had one, you might debate that point.

I used to eat 'em, but they truly are disgusting things.

They're as much food as any packaged good. They aren't made of plastic or styrofoam or some other nonsense; flour and eggs and such go into them.

They're not healthy, no. But on the flip side, it's all about moderation. Claiming someone who eats Twinkies won't live to 50 is very much hyperbole. Maybe if they ate almost nothing but, sure. But a Twinkie or snack cake now and then won't kill you. Kind of like bacon now and then won't kill you.

And as for them being "disgusting", that's a matter of opinion and taste. I do myself prefer Zingers, though.

[Rawhide]

Huh. I guess you *can* hurt a twinkie.

[Dr.Epic]

Never really liked them much to be honest,

Then you must be a robot! Don't try and deny it! After all, the love and passion one gets from eating a twinkee is the most reliable for of a Turing Test.

[Winter_Wolf]

They're as much food as any packaged good. They aren't made of plastic or styrofoam or some other nonsense; flour and eggs and such go into them.

They're not healthy, no. But on the flip side, it's all about moderation. Claiming someone who eats Twinkies won't live to 50 is very much hyperbole. Maybe if they ate almost nothing but, sure. But a Twinkie or snack cake now and then won't kill you. Kind of like bacon now and then won't kill you.

And as for them being "disgusting", that's a matter of opinion and taste. I do myself prefer Zingers, though.

That part I bolded? That was kind of what I was going for.

But in all honesty, there's a certain kind of flavor that all of those prepackaged cake-like things share, which I do think tastes plastic-like. It could just be the cheap plastic they're wrapped in. Or the preservatives, I dunno.

[Dr.Epic]

They're not healthy, no. But on the flip side, it's all about moderation. Claiming someone who eats Twinkies won't live to 50 is very much hyperbole. Maybe if they ate almost nothing but, sure.

I'm currently running an experiment that will prove or disprove if twinkees will grant one immortality. I've yet to become immortal, but I'll keep trying.

[pffh]

Well I guess I'll go into the control group considering I've never even tasted twinky.

[Kelb_Panthera]

But, but......... snowballs.

I love snowballs. Cream-filled choclate cake in a marshmallow shell coated in shredded coconut, what's not to love? They even came in different colors for each of the holidays; pink for valentines, green for st patty's day, orange for halloween, etc.

Damn you, hostess, for your shoddy business practices! If you'd been run properly I wouldn't be denied the wonder that is snowballs. *sheds a single manly tear*

(funny thing: I'm not sure just how hyperbolic I'm being in this post. I really do love those things.)

[Gettles]

Maybe outside the wrappers/box, but in their wrappers and box, they really do last as long as people say.

Speaking as someone who has encountered a 10 year old twinkie still wrapped. No they don't last forever.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Maybe they just don't last like they used to? With the big health movement in the US over the last decade or two, a lot more people are looking at their food labels and companies are using a lot less preservatives than they used to as a result, since people tend to over-react to any hint of a potential health-issue related to preservatives and other chemically produced ingredients.

The notion that "processed" food is more bad for you than "non-processed" food alternately amuses and annoys me. The only way you get food that hasn't been processed in some way or other is to buy raw ingredients and do the processing yourself. Even then, it's processed by the time you eat it; you processed it yourself.

[KnightDisciple]

Maybe they just don't last like they used to? With the big health movement in the US over the last decade or two, a lot more people are looking at their food labels and companies are using a lot less preservatives than they used to as a result, since people tend to over-react to any hint of a potential health-issue related to preservatives and other chemically produced ingredients.

The notion that "processed" food is more bad for you than "non-processed" food alternately amuses and annoys me. The only way you get food that hasn't been processed in some way or other is to buy raw ingredients and do the processing yourself. Even then, it's processed by the time you eat it; you processed it yourself.

The basic formula hasn't changed.

They last long because there's no dairy products (which spoil rapidly). The sponge cake still has flour, sugar, eggs, and such.

Seriously people there are ingredients on the boxes.

They don't last properly for years and years. Yes, perhaps occasionally some that are 2-3 times past shelf life are edible, but that's not recommended, and it's kind of annoying how this is trumpeted as fact.

And while people are scrambling to hoarde Twinkies, thousands of people in cities across the nation are without work. And while the brands will likely be snapped up, the people are a less sure thing.

[Dr.Epic]

Does this mean twinkees will become an endangered species? Man, this is just another thing that my future children will never have:

"Back in my day, we took pictures with an actual camera not a phone which we had to take to a place to get developed and after that we'd rent movies from Blockbuster all while eating twinkees and only nerds owned computers and 64 bits of graphics and game play was considered state of the art."

[Ravens_cry]

Zombieland just got dated.

[Yora]

NO! NO! NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

And all day I was arguing with myself "Do you go out in the cold and restock the fridge over the weekend or wait until monday?". Now I have to go because I'm out of sweets.

[Starbuck_II]

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-l...s-last-2012-11
A science teacher in Blue Hill, Maine, kept one in his classroom for 30 years. "It's rather brittle, but if you dusted it off, it's probably still edible,"

So they last up to 30 years

[Blue Ghost]

Think of the orcs!

[Ravens_cry]

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-l...s-last-2012-11
A science teacher in Blue Hill, Maine, kept one in his classroom for 30 years. "It's rather brittle, but if you dusted it off, it's probably still edible,"

So they last up to 30 years

""Probably", he hasn't tested it. What kind of science is that?

[Pokonic]

Zombieland just got dated.

Life's little twinkie meter just ran out.