Corporate bakery losing sales

by Shayna Glick, Posted Mar 3rd 2008 @ 10:00AM

I was always more of a Little Debbie fan. Star crunches were my absolute favorite. I still sometimes gaze longingly at them at the grocery store. I wonder how they're doing, since reports on their main competition, Interstate Bakeries Corporation, are not looking too good.

The maker of Hostess Cakes, Twinkies, and Wonder Bread has been losing sales for the last quarter at least. And in January alone the company lost $18.9 million. That's the biggest drop since Interstate Bakeries went into bankruptcy in late 2004.

I feel bad for the workers who actually make the products. They'll be the first to get hit. By the same token, I do not feel bad about what the drop in sales could mean. Hopefully people are starting to eat more wholesome and fewer processed foods. This may be a sign that consumers are moving away from foods that can last forever.

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Filed Under: Business, Ingredients, Bakeries
Tags: comfort food, hostess, Interstate Bakeries Corporation, InterstateBakeriesCorporation, losing sales, LosingSales, sugar, twinkies, wonder bread, WonderBread

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

3-03-2008 @10:29AM JPN said... I have to say, I do feel sorry for them, but...unfortunately, more people are waking up and realizing the truth about their products. That in no way means they shouldn't SELL their products, but they can't get away with making a very sugary, fatty producting, pricing it cheaply, and making a quick buck anymore. They need to re-evaluate their business model. Sure, parents used to buy them because their kids liked them, and you could get a box of Little Debbie anything for $0.99 or $1.09; now, parents are more saavy about what they buy for their kids, as far as nutrition. And I used to buy them as snacks for meetings and stuff, but now, even though it's cheap, I realize that people want healthier choices, so I might buy a $4 fruit tray instead of two $1 boxes of sugary snacks.
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3-03-2008 @1:32PM Patrick said... "I do not feel bad about what the drop in sales could mean."

Precisely! It's always a sad proposition when people lose jobs, but sometimes the industry changes that caused those losses are ultimately for the greater good. Cheapness does not trump quality in my food buying decisions. Low prices may be good for my wallet, but if the food isn't good for ME, then no amount of money is going to make my body feel better.
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3-03-2008 @2:19PM joyce said... Have you looked at the ingredient list on any of these products lately. They do not contain FOOD. My daughter bought a small package of powder sugar donuts. On the package it claimed they were using the same, carefully guarded secret recipe since 1937.
The powder sugar ingredients are: Dextrose,corn starch,palm oil veg shortening,calcium propionate,mono and diglycerides,lecithin and artificial flavors.
NO POWDERED SUGAR.
The cake donut contains: flour,sugar,egg yolks and 31 other ingredients that are not food, but chemicals.

I know, she should not eat these, but we ate sweet things on occasion growing up, and it was still food ingredients. Now it is all chemicals.
Go look at the ingredients of food you can buy imported from Italy. No chemicals. The shortbread cooking you can buy from Scotland have Flour, sugar, butter and salt. Thats it. Now, why can't we do this, we use to.
Even our healthy foods are questionable. We import more than we grow. It is all covered in pesticides. The chemical companies is this country are getting away with murder, and making people ill. Wouldn't it be cheaper to use 4 ingredients in a cookie, instead of 27 different chemicals? I hope they all go out of business since they do not seem to care about the health of our children.
And no matter how hard you try, kids are going to go out and eat these foods. What needs to change are the laws that allow this poison to be put into the foods.

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3-03-2008 @2:53PM Baron said... It could also be, much like my recent grocery store trips, that money is getting tighter. Grocery store items, on a whole, are going up considerably. Enough that most people I know, work with and live around are concentrating on getting the basics and not cutting down on snack foods more and more. I honestly don't know anyone that has started to eat better recently, at least not in any large way.
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