What is the shelf life of a Twinkie?
If Hostess workers don’t reach an agreement with the company, they may close the plants.
For the junk food junkies who think today’s Twinkie will still be fresh when Halley’s Comet returns, better think twice. Hostess Foods, makers of Twinkies and other beloved snacks such as Ding Dongs, Ho Hos and Zingers has declared bankruptcy. It isn’t as if we weren’t buying enough of those cup cakes with the squiggle on top, they didn’t reach an agreement with workers on pension, health and other benefits. Among the ‘other’ benefits workers had hoped to get was ‘An unlimited supply’ of their beloved snack food Twinkies, after retirement.
Contractually, ‘Unlimited supply’ had been defined by the company as ‘the weight of the retiree plus 150 calories divided by 5 grams of fat and added to their years of service’. The workers union definition of unlimited supply was defined as ‘An unlimited supply’.
There’s more than enough to go around. Hostess bakeries around the country produce about half a billion Twinkies a year or enough to go around the combined waists of the contestants in the next season of the ‘Biggest Loser’.
A union rep said “get rid of the company gym and all those fitness trainers that we’ve never used and that would improve their bottom line. We’ll forego any additional health benefits if they add ‘Ho Ho’s and/or Ring Dings to the plan and deal with the results down the road. He playfully added, “A road on which we’ll probably never jog”
If the company were to break even, it needs to sell 38 Twinkies to each American every week, and with the way America is growing, that goal is as reachable as the nearest shelf at your local convenience store.
Some have thought that if they made them out of whole grains, maybe they wouldn’t be in such dire straits, but then again, how many organic food sustainability collectives are there?
In related news, 4Hostess employees were fired after they were found to have utilized the Twinkie assembly line after hours to ‘shoot cream filling’ down the throats of new workers as part of their ceremonial welcome to the job. The new workers, dazed and unable to coherently communicate could only offer a ‘thumbs up’ as they went through what seemed to the emergency medical technicians as extreme sugar shock or ‘Whatever the heck they pump into those little cakes’.
So what’s the actual; shelf life of a Twinkie? About 25 days or as long as the average new year’s resolution to diet and exercise. Kind of works out doesn’t it?