If you want to taste one last Twinkie, Zombieland-style, then you had better get crackin'. Hostess, the maker of delicious Twinkies, Ho Hos, Snowballs, and more has just declared bankruptcy.

 

Where is the bailout, I ask you? Where are the TARP funds? I have a feeling that if Clinton was still in office, he would never let this happen. Bill Clinton was a man who loved his Twinkies, I bet.

Hostess has been struggling for years. There are a lot of reasons for it - union disagreements, benefit packages, the bad economy, what have you. But the sad truth of it is that the company was never able to successfully adapt to a changing world. The Hostess name is synonymous with "food that is bad for you," from Wonder Bread to Ding Dongs. 

 

And surprisingly, after almost a hundred years of cramming this stuff in our mouths, we Americans are so fat that we are starting to feel kind of bad about eating all those Twinkies. So we save them for special occasions. And if it's a special occasion, do you really want a Twinkie? Maybe something a little bit nicer?

 

If you just want a cheap sugary snack, most people across the country are able to pick up a box of Little Debbie snack treats. Little Debbie's knock-offs aren't quite the same as an actual Hostess treat, but you can buy an entire box of Little Debbie stuff for the price of a single package of Ho Hos. 

 

Hostess exists in an awkward market niche. Sugary treats that are neither the cheapest out there, nor the fanciest. And it's a market niche that is being squeezed out by our collective guilt and regret. Boomers drove Hostess to the peak of the market, and now that the boomers are getting old and being shocked by their cholesterol numbers, they are turning to healthy snacks instead. 

 

Sure, Hostess tried to diversify their offerings. Can you name one healthy thing that Hostess makes? That's the problem in a nutshell. They have healthy foods, but no one knows or cares about them. 

 

But hey, this may not be the end for Hostess, you never know. Companies go under and get bought up and brought back to life all the time. A few years back, the Mother's Cookies company collapsed. But it was back online less than a year later, and turning out all those delicious Taffy cookies. Here's hoping there's enough value in the Twinkies brand name for some larger company to come along and rescue them for us.