Omg this sucks on so many levels--Mother's Cookies abruptly shut down

[AlCzervik]

(10-08) 17:21 PDT -- Mother's Cookies, an Oakland institution for 92 years, has been shuttered, its owner seeking bankruptcy protection for the company.

The ending was abrupt: Workers for the company, which shifted its baking and distribution operations to plants in Ohio and Canada in 2006, told workers Friday that operations would cease and cookies would no longer be made as of Monday.

The company cited rising prices for raw materials and fuel, and on Monday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

The company that made Mother's cookies at the end was the Archway & Mother's Cake and Cookie Co. of Battle Creek, Mich. It was owned by Catterton Partners, a private-equity firm in Greenwich, Conn., which in 2005 purchased it from an Italian firm, Parmalat Finanziaria, which was plagued by scandals at home.

In 2006, Mother's Cake & Cookie Co. was uprooted from its plant on 81st Avenue in Oakland and relocated. About 230 employees lost their jobs.

According to industry lore, the company was founded in 1914 by a newspaper vendor, N.M. Wheatley, as a one-person shop. It expanded and moved to the 81st Avenue location in 1949.

Mother's later had a series of corporate owners: a Belgian company, Artal B.V., bought it in 1991; it was owned by Specialty Foods Corp. of Illinois in the late 1990s; in 2000, Specialty sold Mother's and Archway Cookies to Parmalat, which in turn sold the combined business to Catterton for an undisclosed sum.

Catterton said in a statement it "took a number of actions to remedy" the company's financial crisis, "but these actions were not sufficient to overcome the losses and return Mother's Cake & Cookie Co. and Archway Cookies LLC to profitability."

One of those efforts was to seek financing. "But, as you know, the credit environment is very difficult now," said Meaghan Repko, a spokeswoman for the owners, in New York.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/09/BU6413DQQO.DTL&type=printable

[mikelgb]

1. too big to fail?

[w4rma]

5. This buisiness gets no bailout, but it fails just like Bear Sterns does.

So Bear Sterns helps cause the financial problems and gets bailed out, but companies like this one which have nothing to do with the financial problems get shut down. That bailout bill was some of the worst legislation in America's history.

[KansDem]

6. Apparently "just about the right size" to fail...

If they had gotten bailed out, the execs could relax at a resort for a weekend or so...

[ProgressiveFool]

2. The cookie has crumbled /nt

[Arctic Dave]

3. My wife works grocery retail told me about this the other day.

I wasn't sure if someone posted already so I didn't write anything about it. She read me the memo they received from their corporate HQ. She has never heard of anything like this happening before.

No more frosted animal cookies. :(

[AlCzervik]

4. i'm sad for the employee's and for me, i love those cookies. What's goes next, It's-It?

[rvablue]

14. I used to live in CA and remember those well.....so sad!! n/t

[WCGreen]

30. It was on the news here in Cleveland about three days ago...

About the Archway Brand going under...

Good cookies. Always soft.

[On the Road]

7. They Shut Down "Mother's Cookies"?

How could they? Those bastards.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

8. I will miss

their glazed oatmeal cookies the mostest.

[AlCzervik]

10. i cannot believe it, how can this happen?

[QueenOfCalifornia]

25. The Chinese

will be poisoning us with shitty cookies soon enough.

[Hawkeye-X]

11. Same here - It was my favorite as a kid..

Often times I'd use to sneak in the kitchen in the middle of the night and take them back to my room (Ah, the cookie crumbles in bed!)

[Bigleaf]

12. I remember eating their oatmeal cookies as a kid. They were great. Too bad. Another company gone.

[Arugula Latte]

9. Sad. Growing up in the Bay Area, I was raised on those things.

[Xithras]

13. Nooooo! I grew up muching on Mothers Animal Circus Cookies

I'll have to go grab a couple of bags tonight before the stores start running out.

One more bit of my childhood is being relegated to the history books. To this day, I still remember my sixth birthday, which had a circus theme. My mom hired a clown and an animal handler with a pigmy elephant for the party, and my birthday cake was covered in those Circus Cookies.

[AlCzervik]

15. i'm heading to Bel-Air market in a bit, i''ll be stocking up on iced oatmeals and

frosted animal cookies.

[Coventina]

16. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! RIP Circus Animal Cookies!

I wish our tax dollars had gone to save Mother's.

:cry:

[AlCzervik]

17. me too, this is just so wrong.

[Arctic Dave]

18. Arctic Jodie just bought 3 bags of the animal cookies.

She said the vendor was coming in Tuesday to reset the shelf. It will be the last day to buy them. :(

[ColbertWatcher]

19. NOOOO! This is the time when we all could use a good cookie! n/t

[madaboutharry]

20. One of my favorite cookies are Archway

lemon cookies. I feel sad. More lost jobs.

[ailsagirl]

21. Already sadly noted... they've been around 92 years

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=141x31592

[earth mom]

22. Wow-I've been thinking that Mothers cookies had started making their cookies in China.

Bought some Gauchos a month or so ago and the filling was all over the place and the cookies were really unappetizing. They looked like someone didn't know how to put the cookies together, which made me think Mothers cookies weren't made in the U.S. anymore.

Have you all noticed that packaged foods don't say where they are made anymore? It's at the point where I am leary of buying products I've bought for years.

:yoiks:

But that said, it's sad to see this and know people are out of jobs.

[Oeditpus Rex]

23. Which were your favorite — pink or white?

Another fond childhood memory down the Republican tubes. :cry:

[AlCzervik]

24. Oedi i am so sad about this, i grabbed 4 bags today at Bel-Air, they told me no

more shipments, it's just done.

[kayakjohnny]

26. Whoa, I was thinking your mom's computer got hacked or something.

[Generator]

27. This really is sad

I feel the America I ever knew or (tasted!) is gone. Reagan/Bush the "conservatives" and all their lies propaganda and greed have fucked this country over for decades. Now we get to watch it end.

[Kadie]

28. Very sad.

K&R

[eridani]

29. That's sad. Used to eat them as a kid

Don't often do dessert as an adult. For some silly reason, I thought of an old cartoon featuring a Mothers Cookies truck mashed into a car. The truck driver is holding a much smaller guy by the scruff of the neck. Caption: "What I said was that you MotherTRUCKERS should drive more carefully."