Published: April 24, 2009 08:16 pm      

Twinkies make comeback

EDMOND — We’ve looked at the demographic trends affecting everything from motorcycles to lingerie, so let’s turn our attention to junk food trends. In doing so, there is probably no other item that symbolizes junk food more than the venerable Twinkie.

The New York Times ran a story Feb. 5 titled “The Maker of Twinkies Is Fresh From Bankruptcy.” Interstate Bakeries, the maker of the iconic Twinkie, filed for bankruptcy protection in 2004 after suffering years of declining sales. It wasn’t much of a story and most people hardly noticed.

So what happened to the Twinkie? Many blamed it on changing consumer tastes. Some said it was caused by fad diets such as the low-carb Atkins and South Beach Diets. This argument never made a lot of sense. It is doubtful that the millions of fad dieters were the Americans who rejected the Twinkie in lieu of bun-less hamburgers. Even before these diets became household names, health conscious dieters were not likely to have been among the shoppers browsing the junk food aisles for Twinkies anyway. It did not take a revelation from Dr. Atkins to make people realize that these sugary sweets are not healthy!

The New York Times reminds us that “Twinkies — love ’em or hate ’em — are about as emblematic as junk food gets. With 39 ingredients, 150 shamelessly empty calories and, officially, a shelf life of about three weeks, the Twinkie is a cream-filled symbol of American culture.”

So, what caused Americans to abandon this cream-filled symbol of their country? Charles Sizemore of HS Dent Research said it all boiled down to one word: Demographics.

“Two demographic trends led to the Twinkie’s downfall. The first is the aging of America. Twinkies are primarily a snack for children, and as the baby boomers moved out of their child-bearing years in the 1990s, we saw declining birth rates that reached a low in 1997. In fact, annual births reached a low not seen in over a decade. The shortage of babies born in the mid-to-late 1990s created a shortage of Twinkie consumers in the years that followed that culminated in Interstate Bakery’s bankruptcy in 2004.”

“The second demographic trend — the aging of America — is related to the first. The baby boomers are the largest and the richest generation in history. In middle age, the boomers expanded the concept of the mass-affluent society to what David Brooks called the “Bourgeois Bohemian” society, a mix of 1960s idealism with 1980s and 1990s no-nonsense capitalism.

“The newer, richer America that they created demanded a healthier diet. Taco Bell was out; a lean California grilled chicken wrap was in. On the mid-day snack front, a coffee and muffin at Starbucks was in; the common Twinkie was out.”

One of America’s best-known and most-loved snack cakes, Twinkies have been tantalizing taste buds and filling lunch boxes since 1930. Twinkies are the stuff of legends and have achieved the status of cultural icon. President Clinton put one in a time capsule and the American Society of Media Photographers recently mounted a photo exhibition featuring Twinkies.

Twinkies have a bit of an image problem also. They got a bad rap with what became known as “The Twinkie Defense.” Twinkies gained notoriety in American courts in 1979 when the media widely misreported the claim that Dan White, who was on trial for shooting San Francisco mayor George Moscone and city supervisor Harvey Milk, asserted that his consumption of junk foods such as Twinkies “had left him with diminished capacity for reason.” That could be just a statement about the wisdom of consuming them in the first place, but what do I know?

In researching this article I also learned that, according to Hostess Foods, it takes 45 seconds to explode a Twinkie in a microwave. It probably takes far less than 45 seconds for a mother to hit the roof in response. I haven’t tested the microwave theory, but I think I will just take their word for it. You might want to keep this column away from your children who will undoubtedly want to see for themselves. Please don’t hold me responsible for an outbreak of Twinkie explosions.

The good news for Interstate Bakeries is that trends are once again swinging in their favor. Births are again in a solid uptrend, meaning that there will be a lot more school lunch boxes with room for a Twinkie. And the prolonged recession has made consumers more cost conscious than before, meaning that the humble Twinkie may appear to be a sensible alternative to the $5 Starbucks muffin. That cream-filled symbol of American culture may indeed be poised for a comeback. I’m feeling the need for a snack. Thanks for reading.

NICK MASSEY is a financial adviser and owner of Householder Group Estate & Retirement Specialists in Edmond. He also is a frequent guest analyst on CNBC and Bloomberg. Massey can be reached at nmassey@thgaz.com.