Given the news today that Hostess Brands is going out of business, everyone’s taking the opportunity to joke that while the company itself may be gone, its Twinkies will last forever.
False! Twinkies actually only have a shelf life of about 25 days. Still, that’s pretty long for a food product to sit around without going stale -- probably because there’s a minimal amount of actual “food” in them. (OK, to be fair, the company told the Washington Post back in 2005 that Twinkies are basically made out of flour, sugar -- three kinds of it! -- oil, eggs, and chemicals, so there’s at least some real food ingredients in there. But we’re guessing the chemicals constitute a big part of a Twinkie’s overall biomass.)
In a way, though, it’s true that the Twinkie (not to mention the Ho Ho, the Suzy Q, the Ring Ding, and the Wonder Bread) will likely survive the company that makes them. Hostess is selling off its brands as part of a bankruptcy liquidation -- meaning another company or companies will almost certainly purchase the right to resurrect some of America’s favorite snack “foods.”
In other words, DO NOT BUY the $5,000 Twinkie on eBay! Any desperate Hostess lover who rushes out to purchase crates for the future zombie apocalypse is going to feel like a real Ding Dong when they appear back on the shelves. (Plus, let’s get real here, folks: as long as the far superior Tastykake Butterscotch Krimpets are still around, we’re gonna be fine.)
The real victims here are not the Hostess hoarders, but the 18,500 unionized workers who are likely losing their jobs because they wouldn’t accept pay, pension, and health care cuts demanded by a company that refused to adapt to an evolving market. Consumers increasingly saw Hostess products as superfluous, not sustenance. Quartz points to this astute assessment of the failing Hostess business model by a food industry analyst:
“Hostess’s once-iconic brands are increasingly viewed as cheap, unhealthy, and outmoded. … Add to this stasis the company sleeping through the health and wellness trends of fewer processed ingredients and lower calorie counts, and it is no wonder the company has struggled to increase sales.”
So in other words, while it’s very sad to see so many people lose their jobs, it’s somewhat encouraging to know that their company failed in part because it refused to follow market demands for healthier food.
Look, I’m under no illusions that sugary snacks will disappear from convenience store shelves anytime soon. And while my late-night Sheetz runs are finally behind me (fatherhood and all that), I confess that I can understand the laments of those who would miss the misbegotten brands many associate with their youth.
But to me, the encouraging lesson here is that if someone does buy the Twinkie name, the new company could very well face the same fate as Hostess if it simply repackages the product without responding to the desires of U.S. consumers for food that tastes good and is actually better for them at the same time.
Could the death of Hostess mean the birth of a healthy Twinkie? That’s an idea that could really last.
Image: turbona/Flickr
