Twinkies

Hostess was not put out of business by union intransigence, as some (including me) would have you believe.

What put them out of business was the crushing costs of rediscovering how to make Twinkies.

You see the Twinkie was developed in 1930 by James Alexander Dewar for the Continental Baking Company.

Millions upon millions were made during World War Two as the Department of War demanded non-perishible foodstuffs for the troops.

So many, in fact, that from 1945 through 2013 not a single new Twinkie was manufactured.  The expiration date printed on the packaging was actually so that the Twinkies could be removed and placed in new packaging for marketing reasons.  The seemingly inexhaustible supplies were running thin by 2008 and Hostess realized that they would have to make more.

Alas the secret to making them was lost with the death of Mr Dewar.  Even if he'd been alive he was obsessed with making bad scotch at the end of his life and would not have returned to baking.

Crippling the research to making new Twinkies was the Food and Drug Administration's rulings that food be made from, well, FOOD.  Hostess was unable to find a way to synthesize the vile chemicals needed for Twinkie manufacture from food in time to save the company.

It was only happenstance that allowed the discovery of Mr Dewar's notes burned onto a barrel stave in a New Jersey knick-knack store.

The rest; is history.