Vacant Twinkie factory auction draws the curious, others hoping for a good buy
Company signs still stand over the former Hostess factory in Ogden on Tuesday, March 21, 2017. Ogden City currently owns the vacant factory grounds.
Equipment on the snack cake assembly line at the former Hostess factory in Ogden sits largely untouched more than four years after the factory closed.
Brian Hayes with Rabin Worldwide auction company gives a tour of the Wonder Bread production area at the former Hostess factory in Ogden on Tuesday, March 21, 2017.
Auction staff found an old Twinkie at the former Ogden Hostess factory while preparing the factory for this month's auction. The Twinkie, which was still wrapped but stale, had likely sat in the factory since the plant closed in 2012.
Don Single from Harvest Food Solutions measures equipment on the snack cake assembly line at the former Hostess factory in Ogden on Tuesday, March 21, 2017. The downtown factory closed in 2012. All of the equipment is being auctioned off on Wednesday, March 22.
Hundreds of Twinkie molds sit stacked and sorted for auction at the former Hostess factory in Ogden in March. The closed factory used to produce Wonder Bread, donuts and snack cakes, including Twinkies. Ogden city has purchased the building and will demolish it to make way for a large-scale mixed-use development.
OGDEN — The machinery that made Twinkies sits idle.
The contraptions that sliced loaves into Wonder Bread gather dust.
Once upon a time, the now-vacant factory at 2557 Grant Ave. — smack dab in the middle of Ogden — pumped out sugary treats and more for consumers spread out around the west. Snack cakes like Twinkies, Sno Balls and Suzy Qs, says Eric Evans, who used to work at the plant.
“It’s kind of an eery feeling, you know, seeing it empty and everything,” he said Tuesday.
The building has sat unused since late 2012, when Hostess Brands declared bankruptcy, shuttering, at least temporarily, plants all across the country, including the Ogden facility. And now it’s on the cusp of another milestone.
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New owners took over the Hostess name in 2013, reorganized and resumed production of Twinkies and some of the brand’s other familiar products at plants around the United States. The Ogden facility, however, didn’t pass muster and the machinery inside is to be auctioned off on Wednesday. The sprawling structure — acquired by the city of Ogden last December for $2.1 million — will then be demolished, later this year probably.
The factory sits immediately south of the 2nd District Court of Ogden structure, and, once cleared, city officials envision a mix of commercial and residential development on the 4.9-acre plot, said Tom Christopulos, Ogden’s director of community and economic development. The Ogden Redevelopment Agency actually owns the property, on the north side of 26th Street, between Grant and Lincoln avenues.
First things first, though.
Evans, who worked for Hostess for 40 years, now works for the Rocky Mountain Baking Co. in the Salt Lake City area. He traveled to the old Ogden building on Tuesday, when auctioneers opened it up to let would-be bidders get a first-hand look at the machinery and equipment to be sold. Bidding is to start Wednesday at 11 a.m., both online and at the Hilton Garden Inn here.
Others also wandered the old factory, eyeballing the dough mixers, ovens, creme-fillers, conveyers, ambient bread cooling systems and more. There were also trays and trays of molds to shape Twinkies, Suzy Qs, cupcakes, bread loaves and more.
“It’s all reusable,” said Jack Copher of Vancouver, Washington-based Harvest Food Solutions. “Some of it’s been well-used.”
Copher was there with Harvest Food Solutions colleague Don Wingle, searching for equipment that might be of service to client bakeries. Still, it wasn’t all business.
“It hurts,” said Copher, who attended the auction of a former Hostess bakery in Philadelphia several years back. “Hostess was a good company for a lot of years. But like a lot of industries, it’s very difficult. It’s a very competitive industry.”
Wingle noted the thought that went into the development and design of the Ogden facility, characterized by conveyers and machinery in a multitude of configurations. “Lots of thought, lots of engineering went into it, a lot of ingenuity,” he said.
Smell of Twinkies, bread
Some of the equipment may see a second life at other bakeries, some may be sold for scrap. “It will end up somewhere,” said Hazel Tria, an accountant out of San Francisco for Rabin Worldwide, which is helping manage the auction with Reich Brothers.
Terms of the auction call on buyers to remove the items by April 7.
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BENJAMIN ZACK/Standard-Examiner
The Hostess Bakery Outlet store sits empty at the former Hostess factory in Ogden on Tuesday, March 21, 2017. The downtown factory and connected store closed in 2012.
Meanwhile, at least a few were waxing nostalgic.
Nick VanArsdell, co-owner of The Lucky Slice, a trio of pizzerias in Ogden, Clearfield and Eden, was there, looking for something that could potentially be incorporated into the decor of one of the locales. “This old industrial stuff is hard to come by and it’s unique and interesting,” he said.
He also just wanted to see the interior of the big factory that, when operable, would emit an odor of Twinkies and Wonder Bread. “Absolutely, the curiosity of what this building is like on the inside,” he said, explaining his visit.
Evans, the former Hostess worker, remembers when the plant made blue and orange Denver Broncos Sno Balls, honoring the football team’s trip one year to the Super Bowl.
“We couldn’t make enough of them. We’d send out truckloads of them,” he said.
Indeed, though there on business, the visit to the old building had an emotional element as well. His wife, Sheree Evans, worked at the Ogden facility as a business office manager and was one of the last workers to leave after it closed its doors in 2012.
“It’s like a final closure, I guess, for me just to come in here and see it one more time,” he said.
Contact reporter Tim Vandenack at tvandenack@standard.net, follow him on Twitter at @timvandenack or like him on Facebook at Facebook.com/timvandenackreporter.
