Hostess Cake/Wonder Bread

[fatbaldguy]

So, they are liquidating a few months into the SECOND bankruptcy in five years.  The conservative pundits are all blaming the unions.

I did twenty years at Wonder Bread.  Yeah, the last ten was like doing hard time in prison.  There is enough blame to go round, management and union alike.  Personally, I would place more on Management.  Something like 60/40.  The unions were plenty greedy for a long, long time.  During the first bankruptcy (I quit the company before the wage cuts began), the front line employee's, of which I was one, took a fifteen percent cut, off the top.  Plus benefit cuts.  Management failed to cut the deadwood and bloat within its own ranks.  Nineteen people in management to supervise sixty?  Really?  Never changed.

Management also failed to adapt to new market conditions vis a vis product and product placement.  They got away from the core principles of bread and cake sales.   

The Unions, raised dues on the members even as wages fell or were cut.  Health insurance (provided by the union) grew more expensive and provided less coverage, even as wages fell or were cut.  And still the unions wanted more.

We were paid commission, if it didn't sell, we didn't get paid.  Quality collapsed, and prices increased.  Sales tanked.

Before blaming any one group in particular, every party should be scrutinized closely.

I'm just glad I got out when I did.  I like to think I saw it coming and bailed before the crash.  I got a five year head start on the folks too afraid to make the move.

[jaybet]

SAVE THE TWINKIES!!!!!

[Timothy]

Surely there is plenty of blame to go around but Hostess brands are pretty much lousy products as far as I've seen.  I don't and have not bought their products in decades.  I think I have only eaten maybe one package of Twinkies in my entire life!  At some point, management and the employees need to realize they're making a product that fewer and fewer people are willing to buy.

[McGyver]

Hostess cake products have sucked ass for the last ten years, but nobody makes a better loaf of fresh bread! Knowing what I know of the baking and bread industry having worked in it for 15yrs., the politics and bs of it have become outrageous!

I too, believe that management are more to blame than unions.

[Rastus]

I didn't buy them anymore because they tasted like crap.  Looked good...tasted bad...like cardboard.  I don't know why the ingredients became that-a-way, but they did.  Looks like some marketing whiz worked themselves into a cheaper product spiral...with some help from other's I would imagine.

On that note, there's a candy store in Tulsa that sells jelly beans, gummie bears, etc. and they cost about 3x more than what you would pay at Wallymarty....but they taste just like they did when I was a kid.  This is a confirmation to me that the ingredients have been dumbed down over the years for a lot of things...steaks taste the same, the cornbread I make tastes the same, the jelly/jam I make tastes the same....it's all that store bought stuff that sucks now.  They call all go the heck out of business for all I care if they participated in "extending" their ingredients and dumbing them down.  I'd rather pay $3 for jelly beans once a month than $1 a week for jelly beans that taste like crap.....

[Sponsor]

[Timothy]

It surprised me to find out how many brands that are affected by this!  What I'm not surprised is that I don't buy any of them!  Like Rastus, I'd much prefer to make my own than eat from this list!

    Baker's Inn
    Beefsteak
    Blue Ribbon
    Bread du Jour
    Butternut Breads
    Colombo
    Cotton's
    Di Carlo
    Dolly Madison
    Drake's
    Dutch Hearth
    Eddy's
    Good Hearth
    Holsom
    Home Pride
    Hostess
    J.J. Nissen
    Merita
    Millbrook
    Mrs. Cubbison's Foods
    Nature's Pride
    Parisian
    Standish Farms
    Sweetheart Bakery
    Twinkie
    Toscana
    Wonder Bread

[Jrlobo]

No brainer that management did not keep up with the changing market tastes. Some of that was forced by attempts at keeping financially sound and that failed. But to try to absolve the baker's union from putting the last nail in the coffin? Absurd. Perhaps they did us a favor by getting rid of a lousy company. Maybe some of the brands will be picked up by companies that reside in right to work states; maybe not. Nothing lasts forever. Haven't had a twinkie since high school...sigh.

[fatbaldguy]

No brainer that management did not keep up with the changing market tastes. Some of that was forced by attempts at keeping financially sound and that failed. But to try to absolve the baker's union from putting the last nail in the coffin? Absurd.

Never tried to absolve any participants blame here.  Just trying to get some to understand that labor is not the ONLY one to be blamed.  The last nail?  Probably.  Management had a hammer in their hand too.

[Solus]

Bad thing about many products is that in looking to make them cheaper, they work to get them to taste the same...talking about produce here...not candy...

Tomatoes, ...all the work they do to try to keep them tasting as much like the older ones...and still not real good job...but the great loss is in nutrition...  It takes 10 tomatoes to give the nutrition of one tomato of, say 40 years ago..same with apples...

Beef is the same...with the hormones and grain feeding, they managed to keep a good taste..but nutrition wise it is miserable...instead of being good for  your health like grass fed beef, current beef causes health problems...

But it tastes great.

[tombogan03884]

Bad thing about many products is that in looking to make them cheaper, they work to get them to taste the same...talking about produce here...not candy...

Tomatoes, ...all the work they do to try to keep them tasting as much like the older ones...and still not real good job...but the great loss is in nutrition...  It takes 10 tomatoes to give the nutrition of one tomato of, say 40 years ago..same with apples...

Beef is the same...with the hormones and grain feeding, they managed to keep a good taste..but nutrition wise it is miserable...instead of being good for  your health like grass fed beef, current beef causes health problems...

But it tastes great.

That's why heart patients are told that beef is bad, but then told venison and buffalo are OK.
Modern store bought meats and vegetables are basically a manufactured product .