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Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Holes in My Hostess Part II

So I received a response from Hostess regarding the 20 pinholes in the package of my Hostess fruit pie. The response kinda freaks me out, I gotta say:
"Recently we began perforating the product film with pin holes to reduce moisture in the package.  We feel this enhancement will provide a flakier crust and is not considered damaged packaging.  Your concerns have been forwarded to our Quality Managers and you should receive follow up correspondence via U. S. mail."
Dude...what??? Okay, I don't know much about food packaging but I have to assume that if they've got the balls to poke holes in their pie wrappers then there must be a "logical" reason. But I'm sorry, I wouldn't buy a candy wrapper with holes poked in it, I wouldn't buy a box of cereal with holes poked in it, and I certainly wouldn't buy a pie that has holes poked in it. Whoever's working in their brand management is a moron for thinking this is actually a good idea. If you know me then you know how much I love sweets, but I will absolutely not be purchasing this product any longer and I told them as much.

This is almost as annoying as when Poking on Facebook was mainstream

Seriously, with all the germs and other crap that supermarket shelves inevitably pick up, and you're gonna basically carve a way for them to get onto your products? Disgusting. "Sweetest comeback in the history of ever"?  I could think of a few different adjectives to describe it.

Monday, February 24, 2014

Holes in My Hostess

I haven't posted any sort of food-centered blog in a while, but today's incident got me so angry that I simply couldn't resist.  I'm not going to say that this is my triumphant return to food blogging, but...it's something.

So, Hostess.  A little over a year ago they went bankrupt, then they were bought over, then Twinkies and other like products returned to the shelves.  I like Twinkies.  I like pies.  I like Chocodiles, Ho Hos, Ding Dongs, Sno Balls, Zingers, Donuts, Donettes, etc.  Some of those I don't think they've brought back yet but I digress.  A couple weeks ago at Albertsons I reached for one of the Hostess pies when I noticed something really frickin' creepy: all of the packages had little pinholes pricked all around them like a kid with zits all over his face.  Every.  Single.  One.  I took one of the packages to customer service with the theory that someone had deliberately poked holes the pie packages with a needle or something.  They were then promptly removed from the shelves.

Fast forward to today.  I again reach for one of the pies only to find that the packages are littered with pinholes.  Every.  Single.  One.  And the holes are all in the same spots, so this wasn't deliberate.  No, this is on Hostess.  So I purchased one to take home, take pictures of, and write directly to Hostess.  Here, my friends, is the specimen:

The specimen

Look closely

If this pie were a camera it would be a pinhole

Seriously, what the hell is this?  I counted TWENTY of these tiny little holes around the package.  Now, unless some butthole is coming into Albertsons and meticulously poking the same pattern of holes in every single Hostess fruit pie, then clearly something is going wrong during the manufacturing process.

I'll update you on my correspondence.