Mother's Cookies Goes Out Of Business, Kills Off Circus Animals
If you're a fan of those pink and white frosted Circus Animal cookies from Mother's, either stock up or start priming your nostalgia, because this week the company closed its doors abruptly. They've cited the expected reasons—the rising cost of raw materials, and an inability to borrow in the frozen credit market.
Unfortunately, the private equity firm that owns the company (it's passed through at least four owners in the past 18 years) didn't give employees the federally required 60-day notice, citing "unforeseeable business circumstances." If they couldn't secure money to pay salaries, that may very well be the case.
If you've got $20 in your household goods budget and can't live with the idea of a circus animal-less world, you can make your own with this kid-friendly cookie cutter set. Or just buy some vanilla wafers and pretend you're eating single-celled organisms, you big baby.
"Mother's Cookies abruptly shut down" [SFGate] (Thanks to Tom!)
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Comments:
@blainer: I've never heard of these things before in my life. Is it a regional thing, like Carl Jr's vs Hardees?
I work for a company that does some service for them here in Ohio. I guess they walked in on Friday and told everyone to leave because they had no more sugar. On Saturday the sent all the employees a FedEx letter explaining the situation and they lost all benefits. They had been having financial difficulty for a while.
Guess now they can take all the sales people on a retreat to a posh California hotel or something.
@cjones27: Unfortunately, there is a government bail out that is supposed to prevent this; you know - that 900 B bailout that has everyone wailing and gnashing their teeth - but unfortunately too many people spent too much time whining about bailing out a bunch of "fat cat bankers" that when they finallly realized that those are the same bankers that lend their small businesses money, it was already too late.
@yagisencho: When I was a kid the neighbor worked for them. On Halloween he'd give out full size packages of cookies; usually he'd have about 10 cases to give away.
Nooooo!
Although, I have to say, the Incredible Shrink Ray has hit Mother's worse of all. Their thick, opaque bags made it even harder to figure out with precision how much they were trying to rip me off, but by the shake method, it was pretty bad.
The bag was 1/8 cookies and 3/4 air. And 1/8 shriveled nostalgia of a lost childhood raped by over-leveraged private equity firms who borrowed too much of other people's money to buy a company that without their interference would probably still be around.
Not that I'm bitter at Wall Street for any particular reason as of late.
Not at all, circus animal cookie murderers. Not. At. All.
@cjones27: Apparently Mothers Cookies didn't donate enough to certain campaigns and thusly does not 'deserve' a bail out.
@vmxeo: Yes! This! I will always remember the field trip to the Mothers Cookies factory tour in Oakland, and getting free cookies at the end of it. This is a sad, sad day...


























The irony of this article following right on the heels of "5 Expenses To Cut Right Now If You're In Debt" hurts my brain too much.