Good news everyone! Twinkees may live after all! Other companies are buying the rights to their snack foods, so we may yet keep the twinkee alive! YAY!
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'We don't tell people what to think River. We just show them how'.
I don't know about years, but a girl I knew did that for a science experiment and the Big Mac did not, in fact, spoil after three weeks. That being said, I would STILL not eat it. Gross.
Having recently eaten one of their CBO burgers, I can say that it might not be universal, but every McD's in a 10 mile radius of my home produces food so greasy that it's probably like how duck confit is preserved in a layer of fat to keep the oxygen and bacteria away from the meat. In fact having read the wiki on duck confit, I'd say it is exactly the same thing happening.
Good news everyone! Twinkees may live after all! Other companies are buying the rights to their snack foods, so we may yet keep the twinkee alive! YAY!
Not a huge surprise- the Twinkie (and to a lesser extent all the other Hostess Foods brand names) has a huge marketing value, and with the original company going bankrupt there's a chance for other companies to buy that value at potentially much less than its actual market worth. There wasn't ever a question as to whether or not Twinkies would survive, IMO- it's just a matter of whether a single company manages to secure the entire Hostess Foods brand portfolio, or if it gets cut apart and divided among different bidders.
Last edited by tyckspoon : 11-19-2012 at 04:47 PM.
Not a huge surprise- the Twinkie (and to a lesser extent all the other Hostess Foods brand names) has a huge marketing value, and with the original company going bankrupt there's a chance for other companies to buy that value at potentially much less than its actual market worth. There wasn't ever a question as to whether or not Twinkies would survive, IMO- it's just a matter of whether a single company manages to secure the entire Hostess Foods brand portfolio, or if it gets cut apart and divided among different bidders.
They were always going to end up back on the shelves, even if it was with a different name.
The problem is whether there was going to be a delay in between
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'We don't tell people what to think River. We just show them how'.
Not a huge surprise- the Twinkie (and to a lesser extent all the other Hostess Foods brand names) has a huge marketing value, and with the original company going bankrupt there's a chance for other companies to buy that value at potentially much less than its actual market worth. There wasn't ever a question as to whether or not Twinkies would survive, IMO- it's just a matter of whether a single company manages to secure the entire Hostess Foods brand portfolio, or if it gets cut apart and divided among different bidders.
Maybe Disney will buy it and then we can see Twinkee the Jedi in the new Star Wars trilogy.
Also consider that at least some stores (as in Price Chopper, Walmart, etc) likely used Hostess to provide "generic" food products (breads, snacks, etc). I mean, do you think Walmart actually runs its own bakeries and such?
It's not simply likely. Roughly 80% of the bread on store shelves in NW Ohio came out of the Interstate Brands facility. The single difference between them is the wrapper.
Having recently eaten one of their CBO burgers, I can say that it might not be universal, but every McD's in a 10 mile radius of my home produces food so greasy that it's probably like how duck confit is preserved in a layer of fat to keep the oxygen and bacteria away from the meat. In fact having read the wiki on duck confit, I'd say it is exactly the same thing happening.
You should try Dairy Queen burgers, I've worked there and the at least in the one I worked at, the food was not as greasy.
i cant view the link right now. that means Hostess might survive and not be forced to sell everything?
It's a link to an NPR article.
It means that they're going to go into talks. If the mediation is successful, they'll negotiate a new contract and everyone can go back to work. Hostess will still be in chapter 11 bankruptcy, but it could potentially reorganize as an ongoing business or sell itself whole hog to a willing buyer that can pay off the debts and get the business at a steep discount.
If they still can't get an agreement, then all the employees will be out of work and they'll have to tear down the factories and sell the business off piece-meal.
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Anarion's right on the money here.
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Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Anarion Mori?
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You just highlandered an entire city block into a glass-filled storm by road-runnering down it in your underwear.
If they still can't get an agreement, then all the employees will be out of work and they'll have to tear down the factories and sell the business off piece-meal.
While my opinions of the participants in this whole fiasco are too political to repeat (also, too full of salty language), I can say that I don't desire anyone to be out of a job in the current economy. Having spent most of the last 3 months looking for a job for after I graduate, it is both depressing and very un-fun. Also, I doubt the factories would all be torn down. A factory is, after all, a very large capital investment, and someone will eventually want a big box of a building to do industrial activity in. Whether or not they will ever be used as bakeries is a different story.
Did anyone else have a "Day old hostess" store to frequent growing up? My mother pretty much got all the bread and snacks for the family at one. And then we let the twinkies sit in the cupboard for a month, so it wasn't until I was an adult that I ate a good twinkie.
Dang, those things are tough . Someone evidently asked if twinkies can burn and the answer is apparently no, no they can't. At ALL.
So maybe someone can snap up the recipe for use as a building material. It's gotta be better than asbestos.
Tongue-in-cheek,
Brian P.
Bah, he just wasn't trying hard enough. If you can make steel burn you can make twinkies burn. Its just a bit more involved than putting a flame near it.
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Kelb, recently it looks like you're the Avatar of Reason in these forums, man.
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[...] bringing Kelb in on your side in a rules fight is like bringing Mike Tyson in on your side to fight a toddler. You can, but it's such massive overkill.
Well, that's the mediation checkbox done . The speed suggests the company was never serious about this mediation -- the management wants out of business as quickly as possible.
Respectfully,
Brian P.
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Well, that's the mediation checkbox done . The speed suggests the company was never serious about this mediation -- the management wants out of business as quickly as possible.
Respectfully,
Brian P.
That statement can go two ways. The company wants this complete while there are still some assets to sell off.
And the company probably wasn't the only one that wasn't serious about the mediation. From reports I've read, I think the only side that was serious about it was the judge.
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That statement can go two ways. The company wants this complete while there are still some assets to sell off.
And the company probably wasn't the only one that wasn't serious about the mediation. From reports I've read, I think the only side that was serious about it was the judge.
Any link to those reports? The more data from more locations, the more comprehensive the picture I have.
Respectfully,
Brian P.
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-- Eliezer Yudkowski, author of "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality"
Bah, he just wasn't trying hard enough. If you can make steel burn you can make twinkies burn. Its just a bit more involved than putting a flame near it.
People had to use a blow torch with lighting fluid I saw on youtube. And even then the Twinkie resisted burning.
People had to use a blow torch with lighting fluid I saw on youtube. And even then the Twinkie resisted burning.
Twinkie are hard core.
Set a twinkie atop a 1kg pile of thermite in a clay bowl and see if there's anything but ash left after.
I think my mild pyromania may be showing a bit here......
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Kelb, recently it looks like you're the Avatar of Reason in these forums, man.
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Originally Posted by LTwerewolf
[...] bringing Kelb in on your side in a rules fight is like bringing Mike Tyson in on your side to fight a toddler. You can, but it's such massive overkill.
I think you mean UNDER the thermite. Thermite tends to melt its way through things...
But if you put it under the thermite you won't get to watch it burn.
Thermite will be throwing off the kind of heat that won't care about over or under, just basic proximity. Gotta love a self-oxidizing fuel.
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Kelb, recently it looks like you're the Avatar of Reason in these forums, man.
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Originally Posted by LTwerewolf
[...] bringing Kelb in on your side in a rules fight is like bringing Mike Tyson in on your side to fight a toddler. You can, but it's such massive overkill.
"Well, the Great and Powerful Trixie can't actually transport you to Equestria... But!
The Great and Powerful Trixie can beat you over the head until you think that's what happened!"
As someone who also worked there, though in IT instead of baking, I can tell you it's not so simple as "evil execs loot and plunder (hehe Captain Planet reference) the company and watch it burn".
One of his final statements is correct, though: it's doubtful the company could have continued working if it wasn't profitable at $2.5bil/year.
But consider that the aggregate total of all the executive pay (for the top 20 guys or so) comes out to a couple tenths of one percent of that company income, and it's not so clear it's "corporate raiding".
Many of those plants (where most/all people involved in running it were union members!) were not only woefully behind in technology, they were often woefully inefficient. Like, millions of dollars of over-production inefficient.
Many of them (especially plant managers) thought they knew better than "the system", and would, when having even a minor technical problem, skip right over the Help Desk's head and call the Chief Information Officer directly. There were times our boss asked "why didn't you guys help so and so", and we'd go "uh we never heard that plant was having any trouble at all, they never even tried calling us".
The plant workers and drivers seemed reluctant to even try adopting new technologies (like the handheld units for tracking inventory, which went from 20-year old bricks with calculator-like output, to much newer, slimmer units that were sort of rough-and-tumble palm computers), often stubborn and/or ignorant when we tried to help them over the phone, and often completely ungrateful. Not to mention the ones who called at 2:00 in the morning for a password reset.
Am I saying every single worker was lazy, resistant to change, ignorant of technology, and ungrateful? By no means. But there were plenty who were, and the company as a whole had a very slow "reaction time" when it came to updating itself. You can't solely pin that on executives.
Well, yes, I can't, but when one side is called to do nothing but give for 7 years, while other takes huge pay raises while complaining ones actually making money are ungrateful, something is wrong. I wouldn't say no to raises had they tried to address problems you mention, at it is the job of leadership, but they did nothing. Why someone who doesn't produce results is given a raise? He should get the pay cut first, unless he is really doing lootem' plunder policy.
And, to be honest, knowing US executive pay grades I wouldn't bet that top 20 guys are so insignificant, in many companies crew counted in thousands takes home less than top 20 guys. I'd suspect to be the case here, too, especially after all cuts to one side and raises to the other. Yes, it was old, inefficient company, but other companies somehow manage to modernize even without making runs on their worker's money.
"Well, the Great and Powerful Trixie can't actually transport you to Equestria... But!
The Great and Powerful Trixie can beat you over the head until you think that's what happened!"
Well, yes, I can't, but when one side is called to do nothing but give for 7 years, while other takes huge pay raises while complaining ones actually making money are ungrateful, something is wrong. I wouldn't say no to raises had they tried to address problems you mention, at it is the job of leadership, but they did nothing. Why someone who doesn't produce results is given a raise? He should get the pay cut first, unless he is really doing lootem' plunder policy.
The bonus to the CEO, Driscoll, was while the company wasn't shutting down, and was likely to try and retain him. He got no stock options or similar items. And the reason to retain him (and I'm not at all convinced he's solely at fault) is so you don't have a sudden change of leadership when your company's about to die. But that's a moot point.
Also, the figures given in the bakery worker's account don't jive with figures given for, say, what the Teamster's union agreed to.
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And, to be honest, knowing US executive pay grades I wouldn't bet that top 20 guys are so insignificant, in many companies crew counted in thousands takes home less than top 20 guys. I'd suspect to be the case here, too, especially after all cuts to one side and raises to the other. Yes, it was old, inefficient company, but other companies somehow manage to modernize even without making runs on their worker's money.
The figures I've seen state that, for 9-10 different executives, the combined total of the bonuses (paid to keep them around while the company liquidates, which is by no means an instant process) is less than $2million. So, again, if you double that, it's 4/10 of 1%. And it's the "please stay here and actually help sell this off".
As for why they didn't modernize, I don't know. It's likely that a fair bit was mis-management. But some of it was, perhaps, a struggle with the daily costs of the business vs. the cost of upgrades. I don't have their financial reports, as they aren't a publicly traded company.
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Re: Buh-bye twinkies
