Oh Hostess, How You've Fallen So Far

There was a time when Hostess ruled the snack aisle.

As a kid, the hardest decision in the corner store was which delicious Hostess treat to take home. Twinkies. Ding Dongs, Cupcakes, Zingers, Chocodiles, Fruit Pies, Powdered Raspberry Filled Donuts.. the shelves were full and every box looked irresistible. 

Nowadays the Hostess snack cake section is minuscule, if.. you can even find it at all. This is probably the result of the company going bankrupt and then being bought, sold, and reorganized to death. Somewhere along the way the brand lost something. The quality did too.

Once the undisputed king of the snack cake aisle, 

Hostess now occupies a tiny corner of the real estate it once dominated

As someone who once ran a snack cake blog, I can personally attest to just how far they've fallen. I used to track new releases, seasonal snacks, packaging changes, and recipe tweaks across the industry. You start to notice things when you pay that close attention. Portion sizes shrink. Textures change. Fillings get thinner. Sometimes the magic just disappears. Don't even get me started on their marketing and advertising mascots. That's a whole other story altogether.

The new Hostess Lemon Coffee Cake? Okay... maaaybe. But the picture on the packaging doesn't even look very appetizing. That alone would have stopped me as a kid.

These days Hostess still gets me to open my wallet occasionally, but it's almost always an impulse buy. Maybe a Snoball or a Zinger for nostalgia's sake.

I don't even buy Twinkies anymore. They just don't taste the same.

Ding Dongs, Cupcakes, Chocodiles.. I might try them again if I ever actually saw them. But I almost never do.

For a company that was once an American icon of the snack aisle, it's honestly a little sad.

Hostess used to make snacks you craved. Now they mostly make snacks you just walk past. But hey, at my age.. what am I complaining about? I don't need to be eating much of this stuff anyway. As long as I can find my bi-annual Hostess Zinger, Snoball, cupcake, or donuts, I'm ok. But then again, I guess I have to be.