Late last week, we learned that Hostess Brands planned to file for bankruptcy, due to a fight between the company and one of its largest unions.
People mourned, people hoarded, people tried to sell Twinkies — one of the company’s most beloved treats — for thousands of dollars on eBay.
On Monday afternoon, “Hostess Brands Inc. and its striking union agreed to a mediation that will forestall the company’s planned liquidation for the time being,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
“Both sides agreed to try to work through their conflict, which would preserve more than 18,000 jobs that will otherwise disappear if the Irving, Texas-based company closes its doors,” said the paper.
Great! So many jobs will be saved. That’s really good news.
Not great! That much junk food will still be on our shelves. Now, there is a time and a place for Doritos or Honey Buns or Funyuns or other more generic packaged foods. We’re not saying all junk or snack food companies should just shut their doors and stop production entirely.
Please, don’t. But maybe it’s time to take a hard look at ourselves if we pay such a huge amount of our attention to the “death” of the Twinkie. Hostess also makes Wonder Bread, which you might remember if you were a latchkey kid of the ‘50s.
“Since the 1950s and ’60s, toast has been a staple of most breakfasts, while bread has been on the dinner table in almost every household,” said Time magazine. “Gradually, though, our diets have changed and our consumer preferences have shifted.”
We have more options for breakfast than just stupid, plain toast. Plus, everyone either thinks they’re allergic to gluten or they actually are, so fewer people are buying bread products in general.
Fun fact: Time said that tortilla purchases increased by 3.6 percent each year since 2007. Plus, less people are serving a bread item as a side with dinner — a meal Americans are spending less time eating, as well.
“Dinner is changing,” said Harry Balzer, chief industry analyst with the food-industry-analysis firm NPD Group. “We spend 24 minutes eating dinner. It’s become less and less and less. So we’re always looking at where we can save time or money.”
So maybe we’re not making better food choices, but we’re making meal choices that include less actual bread. Either way, Americans are moving on from the 1950s and into more totally tubular food choices. Ever hear of the soup-to-go that you cook in a bag? Yeah, that’s Campbell’s way of making soup appeal more to the “millennials.”
That soup is marketed to young people who don’t have a lot of time to cook actual food. Seems like we’re not eating bread anymore. Maybe we should extend that hurried version of dinner to our snacks.
There’s no need to mourn the loss of the Twinkie. It’s better for you and your health if it slowly disappears off shelves.
