No more twinkies

[DJinCO]

And driving a Prius.

 

[LagunaH1]

And driving a Prius.

With naked ears. And Tofu.

 

[3Hummers]

The union workers knew the condition of the company. To strike was stupid, unless they wanted to run the company out of business, themselves out of a job and then collect their 99 weeks of unemployment. Everyone at Hostess is out of a job. Sounds like they all got what they wanted/deserved.

 

[Sircode13]

I always thought that Twinkies were supposed to be around after the apocalypse, nuclear or zombie. That's what all the movies always showed. Now what are we all supposed to survive on? Now we're all going to die!!!
:banghead:


Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[f5moab]

Damn Twinkie gave me heartburn last night....

Never thought about it, but if Twinkies were going to last through the apocalypse, would there still be Tums, Rolaids or Pepsid? :sigh:

 

[Medic_Morgan]

Thought this was pretty funny so I fig'd I share it

http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/3293055-goodbye-twinkies-another-mayan-calendar-omen


Sent from my secret lair bwaaahhahahahah

 

[MuDnYrI]

I knew they were doomed when they removed Chocodiles from the store shelves in the late 90's :giggle: :wink:

 

[twinmill28]

I'm going to start collecting whatever remaining Twinkies I can find and sell them off as needed in the coming years on Ebay. Going to get rich!

 

[Expendable]

I heard 5 boxes sold for $200 on eBay

 

[M22KLARS]

Just found this on eBay. HA!

 

[Green 1]

And on that note, I'm going to take the pup for a walk, the come home and eat my last package of Twinkies. Damn, in a few years ya'll will be eating tofu and dandelion salads.

No Ijust came back from there.

 

[f5moab]

Are you back in the states?

If so, welcome back

 

[SickStringC]

[video=youtube;MeS6DvyLScE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeS6DvyLScE[/video]

:giggle:

 

[Kurt]

I guess the court decided against liquidation:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...ion-article-1.1204664?localLinksEnabled=false

Story from the other side:

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/18/1162786/-Inside-the-Hostess-Bankery

I wouldn't mind seeing the whole numbers on this turkey, but being a private company I guess that depends if it actually liquidates or not. With $800 million in secured debt, it seems like someone is eager to liquidate, especially if you are one of the secured creditors.

As for the lard filled sponge cakes, I guess it'll go to Bimbo or Conagra or another big brand multinational so I can't imagine the products themselves being out of production for very long.

 

[f5moab]

The union side and that includes NYT, is interesting. However, large bakeries such as Hostess, and others work on a margin that is very small compared to other unionized shops like utilities, car manufacturers, etc. That is one reason why Bimbo owns parts of all the other large bakeries in the USA. I expect that soon the twinkie will be renamed El Twinko and made in a mexican plant. However, having worked at a union plant in TN for seven years, and seeing what the union worker gets away with as well as listening to their constant whining, I have no cares at all for the uniion. And the workers don't seem to care to change.

I'll let it lie for now since I don't like twinkies and the one I had gave me heartburn.

 

[HUMMERADDICT]

Unions are killing America.

 

[Kurt]

Unions are killing America.

How? I understand the conflict in interest with public sector unions, but private sector unions? Not all Unions are the same.

America deserves more than the race to the bottom.

 

[ArtHummer]

 

[f5moab]

Unions are killing America.

:thumbs:

 

[Hunner]

Went by to check on the metal fabricator and there is one of those bakery outlet stores on the corner. There were 10 Hostess delivery trucks in the lot at 11:30. They either took off for the holiday early or are shut down.
How bout "diet" twinkies:whaa:

 

[deserth3]

I read the Judge sat in the meeting as the mediator. Leads me to think union may be a little more at fault than they want people to believe. I think the judge would have hammered the owners if they had the lions share of the blame and talks would have gone longer than one day.

 

[Kurt]

I read the Judge sat in the meeting as the mediator. Leads me to think union may be a little more at fault than they want people to believe. I think the judge would have hammered the owners if they had the lions share of the blame and talks would have gone longer than one day.

Here's the problem I have.

You had a company with 2 Billion dollars in revenue, averaging about 120-140k of revenue per employee. The high end of the last union contract was around 40K per year, that was cut during the last round to 35K, but thats the higher end, the average seems to be for a union baker is around $12-14 per hour. With pensions and health care on top of that I don't find that too excessive or greedy.

Not to mention the competition in that sector also uses Unionized labor. So what gives?

Obviously not updating the product line, having too many brands in the same market space [self cannibalization ] and no technology production upgrades. The plants are running 1960's and 1970's technology and the leadership was unwilling to adjust to the changing tastes of consumers. I can't see blaming the rank and file for that.

So back in the 70's and 80's Hostess[Continental Baking] was a division of Ralston Purina.. no problems there. According to reports, the Hostess ship was run tight, but purina slashed advertising and downsized the size of the cakes [twinkees used to be larger]

The problems seem to start in the 1990's, Interstate baking purchased Continental Baking to acquire the hostess brands from Purina with cash and stock deal. The stock deal had Purina owning 46% of Interstate.

And here starts the problem.

Interstate had no plans for Hostess other than to keep pumping out white bread and cakes. They also had a goofy distribution bonus system which allowed regional managers to get bonuses on sales, but not accounting for returns of stale and unsold product. That's a bad idea right there. You had a few folks pumping stores full of product, gaming the system, resulting in unsold products heading into the trash, while they pocket the bonus. That's a double whammy to the bottom line. Giving credit back to retail outlets and handing out bonuses to falsified sales...

And the big problem. Where the hell did all that debt come from. Almost a billion dollars?

UNIONS! Right?

Well Purina owned 46% of Interstate, and Interstate wanted to become wholly owned again. So between the mid 1990's and the first bankruptcy in 2004 Interstate racked up over $640 million dollars in debt from stock buybacks.

So we had a company that got way in over its head buying another company, didn't manage it well and leveraged itself to death to reacquire all the shares which resulted in bankruptcy. Oh and the head of interstate at the time managed to get himself rehired after the bankruptcy as an consultant for even more money. :huh:

So everyone got screwed, and the unions took a hair cut. Interstate/Hostess hired new management to try to take over. The board was a revolving door for years until they hired this gem:

Gregory Rayburn

The man who will turn around Hostess!

Let's look at his resume:

• CEO, Hostess Brands: February 2012 – Present (10 months)
• CRO, Indiana Live Casino and Indiana Downs Racetrack: February 2011 – April 2012 (1 year 3 months)
• CEO, NYCOTB: July 2010 – January 2011 (7 months)
• CEO, Magna Entertainment Corp. March 2009 – May 2010 (1 year 3 months)
• CEO, Muzak: 2005 – 2006 (1 year)
• CRO, AAIPharma Services Corp.: 2004 – 2005 (1 year)
• CRO, WorldCom: 2003 – 2004 (1 year) (Holy **** :giggle
• CEO. Sunterra: 2002 – 2003 (1 year)
• Co-Founder, Capstone Equity: 1999 – 2001 (2 years)

This would ring alarm bells with me with a guy who can only seem to hold down a job for the average of 1 year, and be all over the place, especially a CEO.

Especially someone who had hands on the wheel during the Worldcom embezzlement scandal...

And every one of those companies were either taken over by another firm or liquidated shortly after this guy took charge.

So what PE firm in their right mind would loan 650-850 million to a "cupcake factory" and put this guy in charge? A PE Firm that knows **** is going to go sideways so they can put themselves on top of the secured creditors list when the inevitable happens. And to make sure it does happen they plop someone in charge with a known track record.

And then prime the fuse by breaking the bankruptcy agreements reached with the unions? [such as raiding the pension funds, aka 'pension holiday'].

No **** the Union walked away from that. Especially with faced with a further wage cut knocking them down to minimum wage [38% over the next few years] and a 1 in 3 chance of losing their job anyways due to plant closures? They were better off walking away now and at least having unemployment be based on their existing wages while they get a new job. Heck Continental broke their last agreement, why should the next one be any different.

But don't fret.

Pepsi owns Hostess in Canada and they are still going strong.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-19/twinkies-wonder-bread-carry-on-in-canada-post-hostess.html

But if you think Unions caused the downfall of hostess.. well, look into the details.

The Judge probably did and figured out there was no way to unwind this mess...

The real winner in this?

Purina. They unloaded a unwanted division to a competitor and sunk them.

 

[DJinCO]

Bottom Line = Greed.

 

[M22KLARS]

I heard that the MN Twins are buying Twinkies. Santa is buying Ho Ho's but changing the name to Ho Ho Ho's. And Barrack is buying Ding Dongs. :giggle:

 

[Kurt]

On a lighter note: