Howdy, all--
Hope you all in the Eastern Seaboard foodsheds are surviving this
Horrendous Food Shortage.
Sounded like damn good news to me.
:^)
peace
mish
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> `Ready to kill' -- labor dispute
> sparks Twinkie shortage
>
> MARTIN FINUCANE, Associated Press Writer
>
> Wednesday, March 22, 2000
> Breaking News Sections
>
>
> (03-22) 02:21 EST BOSTON (AP) -- Forget the
> high gas prices. Folks along the East Coast are
> swallowing bitter news this week: There is a
> shortage of Twinkies and other snack-food
> favorites, courtesy of a labor dispute.
>
> Supply problems are being reported from the
> nation's capital to Maine, wreaking havoc on untold
> snack breaks.
>
> ``I'll have to eat healthy food,'' complained Rubens
> Breeden, a 28-year-old state worker longing for
> Ring Dings and Devil Dogs on Tuesday.
>
> Charlie Bianchi, who works at a snack bar in one of
> the busiest state office buildings, has faced the wrath
> of the hungry masses.
>
> ``All day long, they're saying, `Where's my
> Twinkies? Where's my coffee cake? Where's my
> pound cake? Where's my Devil Dogs? Where's my
> Yodels? Where's my Ring Dings?''' Bianchi said.
>
> ``They're ready to kill. They look at me with doubt
> in their eyes. They think that I forgot to place the
> order. It's always the coffee slinger's fault,'' said
> Bianchi, 42, assistant manager of Hal's Place.
>
> Actually, a Teamsters strike has lsed to shortages in
> a variety of well-known bakery products, including
> Wonder bread and Hostess brands such as
> Twinkies.
>
> As shelves empty across the region, the area will
> have to do without deliveries of about 2 million
> Twinkies and cupcakes per week and another
> 400,000 loaves of Wonder bread, a company
> official estimated.
>
> The strike began a week ago when 1,400
> Teamsters responsible for delivery and sales of
> products from Interstate Bakeries Co.'s only New
> England bakery in Biddeford, Maine, walked off the
> job.
>
> Since then, that bakery and others have shut down
> as Teamsters in other states honored the pickets.
> Interstate Bakeries officials say five bakeries in four
> states have closed.
>
> The union has accused the company of refusing to
> honor arbitration rulings. The company maintains it
> was shut out of the arbitration process, and it has
> asked a judge to clarify the process.
>
> One of the major sticking points has been the
> company's requirement that drivers deliver more
> than one brand of Interstate products. The
> Teamsters say drivers are supposed to be paid
> different amounts for each brand.
>
> All of this comes as the Twinkie, the yellow,
> spongy, cream-filled cake, approaches its 70th
> anniversary next month.
>
> Some people are already seeking to make a buck
> off of the Twinkie crisis. What was billed as ``The
> last box of Twinkies known to Man?'' was being
> offered on the Internet auction site eBay, with the
> minimum bid set at $2,500. There were no takers
> late Tuesday.
>
> Pamela Anderson, a mother of two, picked up
> some of the last Twinkies at a gas station in
> Concord. N.H.
>
> ``I say they're for my kids, but they're really for
> me,'' she said.
>
> Lisa Towne, a dental hygienist with Aesthetic Dental
> Center in Concord, saw a bright side to the strike:
> ``The dental community might even benefit.''
>
> In downtown Boston, shelves usually occupied by
> Hostess products were bare or getting there
> quickly.
>
> To Breeden, the Massachusetts state worker, eating
> Twinkies and other snack cakes is just part of
> growing up American.
>
> ``It's like everything from baseball to watching the
> Celtics,'' he said. ``Basically, every little kid does it;
> it's like throwing rocks and playing in the mud.''
>
> ------=
>
> On the Net:
>
> Hostess site: http://www.twinkies.com
>
> Teamsters site: http://www.teamster.org
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