Irving-based Hostess Brands has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the second time since 2004. Does that mean it’s to stock up on Twinkies and Ho Hos?
Well, no. The indestructible snack cake will likely survive this financial collapse (and any other catastrophe thrown at it). The 82-year-old company—which relocated to Texas in 2009 to make a new life for itself weathering its first bankruptcy—has obtained a $75 million loan (from vulture capitalists, in Rick Perry parlance) that it believes will allow the company to continue baking throughout the bankruptcy proceedings, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Some 82 percent of Hostess employees are unionized, and the company hopes to change its collective-bargaining agreements with twelve unions to stay afloat, the Journal reported. In a statement, the company said it “is not competitive, primarily due to legacy pension and medical benefit obligations and restrictive work rules.”
Another issue? Americans appear to be losing their taste for Twinkies. Last year, only 36 million packages of the indestructible snack good were sold, down two percent from 2010, according to SymphonyIRI Group, a Chicago-based market-research firm.
At CultureMap Austin, Michael Graupmann lamented America forsaking its cream-filled past:
This health nut-jogging-yoga-pilates-CrossFit-anorexia-ThighMaster-TaeBo society we’re now wallowing in has completely undermined the truth of what this once great country was originally built upon: individually wrapped snack cakes with silly names made of harmful materials that don’t ever biodegrade!
As for me and my house, we will be stockpiling all the Twinkies. Cuz you never know when the zombie apocalypse is gonna hit.
If the Twinkie does disappear, frymasters at the Texas State Fair will surely dream up other things to dunk in hot oil. But America will never be the same.
