Friday the world’s most well-known snack maker announced it is closing.
The official wind-down of Hostess means the closure of 33 bakeries, more than 500 distribution centers, 5,500 delivery routes and almost 600 outlet stores across the U.S.
About 18,000 workers lost their jobs in the closure.
The company has been around about 80 years.
Their most well-known product is the Twinkie.
According to the company website, “Hostess brands is closed.”
The company announced the closure Friday, citing a labor union strike as the cause.
The board will sell off the assets, the facilities and the iconic brand.
An Oklahoma City Walmart store was selling Hostess snacks for the clearance price of just $1.
Twinkies, Zingers and Ding Dongs are apparently a hot item, only a few were left.
“You see the little heart, it makes you feel good, nostalgic,” branding expert Kyle Golding said. “When you see their packaging you know instinctively that it’s Hostess because of the consistency in their branding.”
The Golding Group specializes in branding and business strategy.
However, Golding would not be surprised if the value of the Hostess brand lost some value this week because of the very public way the company went belly up.
Because of social media, everyone in the world now knows, even if the company is purchased by another snack-maker, it won’t be the same Hostess.
“The joke used to be after a nuclear war the only thing that would survive would be cockroaches and Twinkies,” Golding said. “Maybe now, not Twinkies, just roaches.”
Hard to imagine life without Twinkies.