Whoa, Whoa, WHOA. Where am I supposed to get my Circus Animal cookies now? Are you kidding me, one of the oldest and greatest ICONS of cookiedom is gone? What about Taffy's or Frosted Oatmeal cookies? (I actually haven't had either of these in years, just trying to make a point here). Rising prices for raw materials and fuel are blamed for shuttering Mother's Cookies. Raise the price of the goods or services your making or providing. Cut back and only make a few types. Somebody out there has to be able to make the little frosted animal cookies with the colored sprinkles and be able to do it profitably. Why does EVERY business that fails blame outside sources as if they have no control over them? It's such bullshit. These companies buy fuel contracts and if they don't, than they are IDIOTS. Gee, the price of flour has gone up. O.K., so raise the price of the cookies. The 14oz. bag of cookies cost $2.79. Raise it to $2.99. Think anyone would notice? Doubtful. Who else makes frosted sprinkled animal cookies? I'm pretty sure there aren't many out there. And at the stores I shop at, none but Mother's. So, is Keebler or Nabisco/Sunshine going to swoop in and start making them? Did Catterton Partners sell off the recipes? Only time will tell. But I'm sure they'll do whatever they can to squeeze out the last drop of money from the Mother's Cookies brand.
Check out their website. I love this statement: "Throughout our history, we have helped our portfolio companies to rapidly and successfully achieve their business goals and objectives, and to become leaders in their respective industry segments." That was from the Catterton Partners corporate overview. Yeah, great job. Mother's is surely a leader now. C'mon. How do they get people to invest in this equity firm when they ran a 92 year old company into the ground? Now, close your eyes and imagine your local grocery store. Think of the cookie isle. Think of all the Mother's cookies that will no longer be there. Well, here's my take. Those brilliant equity partners were paid WAY too much and Mother's as a BRAND couldn't make the company enough revenue to continue. It's not about taking a pay cut or even letting Mother's operate even-steven. It's about taking too much money out of the kitty and not leaving enough in to run the business. I would love to see this as a case study for business students in colleges around the country. How to completely and utterly fuck up a 92 year old INSTITUTION. If you own a business (Oregenos Pizza Bistro are you listening?) and the suits show up at your door, slam it in their face. Think of the sub prime mortgage meltdown of 2008 and think of those suits as mortgage lenders who are just there to offer you a deal that is just TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. Don't fall into the trap of selling your soul or your company, even if it's only 49%, to the suits. Go find a Mother's Cookie wrapper and pin it to your wall right now. Don't let this happen to you or your business. There is no reason why Mother's should have failed except for BAD MANAGEMENT. In today's world, where the only people making money are those middle men making the deals, Mother's has just become another example of the money men taking a viable institution and wrecking it. Don't BLAME the price of fuel or the price of flour. Blame Catterton Partners. We need to get back to the banking and finance arenas of years past where a businesses operated within their means and financial institutions loaned their own money or that of their depositors, not money they borrowed to inflate their own asset list. This is truly as sad day for anyone who appreciates MADE IN THE U.S.A.
I raise my glass of milk and toast those at Mothers Cookies. Farewell my friend, you will be missed more than you shall ever know. The void in my stomach that was once filled with the wonderful goodness of Mothers Cookies, shall remain empty from this day forth.
I raise my glass of milk and toast those at Mothers Cookies. Farewell my friend, you will be missed more than you shall ever know. The void in my stomach that was once filled with the wonderful goodness of Mothers Cookies, shall remain empty from this day forth.
7 comments:
Never heard of them. I love when people are saddened when something goes out of business, yet that person has not supported them in years. Multiply that by thousands and you know why people go out of business. Not just increasing raw materials, lack of demand.
Don't forget spell check i.e. bunkrupt in title line.
Thanks for the tip. Ahh, you've honestly NEVER heard of Mothers Cookies? R U serious? Because you have to be joking. And I never said I didn't support them. I said I hadn't had a frosted oatmeal cookie in years. I had a frosted animal cookie with little sprinkles about a month ago. Love them. Sorry if you've never experienced them. I'll see if I can grab a shot of their line at the grocery store before they all go away.
artificially-flavored-and-
colored-shortening-covered-
and-laden-corn-syrup-
sweetened cookies should not only go away, they should be BANNED. those cookies of which you mourn the loss, are a faint echo of what they ever were, or were ever intended to be.
Hey Chef! Make some butter cookie dough, roll it out, cut the figures you want, bake them and dip them in some white chocolate or fondant. add sprinkles if you want.
SHORTENING SUCKS!!!!!
hold on here....you mean that IF I ever have kids someday, they won't get to experience the sugar coded animal cookies that are in my memory of my childhood....this recession sucks!
Carter and Clinton, thank you so much for allowing us to get ourselves into this mess, now future kids won't get this sugar high experience. So sad...a day of mourning for sure.
Check laci out going back to Carter 30 years ago. Were you even born then Laci?(Thats a compliment:) Never mind the late nite passing of Phil Gramms banking deregulation and all the other political tomfoolery through ALL the administrations in recent years.
Getting back to the important topic of "cookies". I've never new the names of them until I saw them. They might even be in your near future???? :)
No shortening on the label. Confectioners Glaze, sugar, palm kernal oil, bleached flour. Is it perfect, no. But then again since we don't have pastry shops on every corner and we've become a society that wants convenience, it is how it is. Or, you could move out to a self-sustaining farm and whoop it up. Choice is yours. Oh, and as far as "Make some butter cookie dough, roll it out, cut the figures you want, bake them and dip them in some white chocolate or fondant. add sprinkles if you want." Sure, I could do that. Or, I could allocate my resources to something else and drop the $2.79 for the bag of cookies. The point here wasn't about the cookies as much as a 92 year old company that was driven into the ground. 2% or less corn syrup hardly seem LADEN. But I suppose to some it is. And I would agree that ANY corn syrup is bad. However, since we live in a society that wants everything CHEAP, that's how it goes. You want Corn Syrup banned? Start a petition
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/?s_kwcid=petition|1066986930 and rise against the machine. Or, get off your soapbox. Get your petition going and I'll be happy to post it here. I would love it if as a society we could go back to a time when food was more natural and hopefully that's the direction we're currently headed.
Post a Comment