At Hostess plant, bittersweet feelings

• "The world will go on without Twinkies," one worker says
• Butternut bread accounts for one-third of one store's bread sales.
• Hopeful rumors that another company will buy brands

CINCINNATI -- On frosty winter mornings and hot summer nights, the scent of baking bread from the Butternut plant used to blanket parts of Cincinnati's West End.

No more.

The bread plant is toast.

So is Butternut's parent company, Hostess Brands. The company closed its doors Friday, blaming striking bakers.

Nearly 18,500 workers nationwide are out of a job -- including close to 150 at the century-old Cincinnati bakery. That means the end of the line -- for now -- for such iconic bread lines as Wonder and Butternut (a Cincinnati-bred bread for more than 100 years) and those vintage snacks Ding Dongs, Ho Hos, Honey Buns, cream-filled cupcakes and that old standby, Twinkies.

Everyone, it seems, has a favorite Hostress product. James Yett favored Iced Honey Buns.

"I'd buy them at a convenient store ... when I was a kid," he said Friday afternoon as he swept ashes from the street in front of the shuttered Butternut plant.

Yett worked as a sanitizer for 16 1/2 years at the bakery. The Westwood man was still cleaning up even though he was out of a job. The ashes came from a fire barrel strikers filled with logs and burned to keep warm. Yett is a union shop steward.

"The world will go on without Twinkies," he said as he took a break and leaned on his broom.

"But we have to find a job," he added, pointing to a dozen suddenly unemployed workers standing on the sidewalk outside of the suddenly closed company.

"Great timing," scoffed Ernest Robinson of Price Hill. The fan of the short-lived lemon Hostess cupcakes worked in the bakery's shipping department for 12 years. "Put people out of work right before the holidays."

He frowned and added: "I'm 49, out of a job and scared. Merry Christmas, from Hostess!"

James Teagarden sat in the cab of his semi. The 59-year-old Butternut/Hostess trucker had just returned "from a run to West Virginia delivering bread and cakes. I came in and asked where I was supposed to go tonight. They told me to turn in my keys and get my stuff out of my cab."

He had trouble picking a favorite Hostess treat. Losing his job after 15 years left a bad taste in his mouth.

Ripples from the plant's closing landed on the shelves of Hatting's Supermarket in Green Township.

"This closing could not have come at a worse time for the bakery's employees and for my customers," said Chris Hatting, a third-generation owner of this full-service mom-and-pop grocery. His family has been selling Butternut and Hostess products for 70 years. Twinkies were 12 years old when Hatting's grandfather opened his first store. Generations of his customers grew up singing the words to Butternut's jingle: "Tut, tut, nothing but, Butternut Bread!"

Butternut accounts for one-third of Hatting's bread sales. Hostess donettes are his best-selling powered doughnuts. Then there's the German Rye Dark Bread.

"I sell a lot of it for Thanksgiving," he said. "Now where will I get a dark German rye?"

He thinks he will have an answer soon.

"Rumors run the grocery business," he said as he straightened the loaves of bread. "I've already had two bread-truck drivers tell me companies are already bidding for the brands. These names, Hostess and Butternut, and their recipes are too valuable not too sell to someone."

Two aisles over, tears welled in the eyes of Hatting's cashier, Donna Salzman, as she bagged a loaf of Butternut.

"I'll get along without Twinkies and Hostess cupcakes," she said. "They don't taste as good as they did when I was kid. Too many chemicals.

"But I don't know what I'll do without Butternut bread," she said. "That's the best bread for making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It's the freshest bread around. It's baked right here in town."

----

Twinkies by the numbers:

500 million -- the number of Twinkies baked each year

150 -- the number of calories in one Twinkie

26 -- the shelf life (in days, not years) of a Twinkie

10 -- the minutes it takes to bake a Twinkie.