if you ran hostess what would you do?

[Spike89]

72. Franchise and regionalize

I'd have focused on saving the brand. The corporate structure wasn't really feasible for that product in today's market. What worked for so long--relatively unique baking/packaging techniques and a "first in sector" branding blitz--no longer is enough to overcome the primary weakness of the product (no, not the nutritional "value&quot . The product has astonishingly short shelf life for a National brand--despite folklore, most of the Hostess line has a sell-by date measured in days or at best a couple weeks. Although relatively lightweight, the product is bulky and fragile and doesn't have an especially high value/cu foot. It is a product that inherently has a huge advantage being made locally.

Hostess long ago lost virtually every advantage in technique/packaging. They were extremely innovative in their day, but we're talking cakes and bread. They have a huge number of regional and "sub-brand" competitors each of which can make a creme-filled sponge cake (Twinkie) on automated equipment for near the cost Hostess managed (Hostess did have huge scale advantages, but distribution and advertising costs more than cancel the savings).

The brand value is very high--love them or hate them, the Twinkie (Ho-Ho, Ding Dong, pie, load of Wonder Bread) you buy in Oregon is exactly as good (and "fresh&quot as the one you get in Maine, Florida, Nebraska and it doesn't matter if you buy it in the summer, winter, or spring--it will be exactly as good as the last one you bought.

Because everyone is freaking out (rightly so) about a union business shutting down, I've got to put my 2 cents in. The "sides" in this case are not just the workers or the management. Competitors are a problem. It is very difficult to "buy union" in the grocery store. It isn't easy to tell by any means, groceries are really price sensitive, and there are some very powerful issues to consider (Organic, sustainable, local, healthy, ethical) that can actually be in conflict to the union-is-best ideal. Despite that, we need to do better at promoting unions and especially at getting unions into more and more factories and job segments.