This post originally appeared on Inc.
As Apple has found, having to scramble for your next big hit can be dangerous. There’s the chance that interest in the old cash cow starts to drop without something else to take up the difference.
You can try to encourage innovation, or sometimes you can see it elsewhere and get on the bandwagon.
In the case of Hostess, it only took 14 years.
The company has started to sell its first frozen product: deep-fried Twinkies, as the Associated Press reported.
If that sounds familiar, it should. Deep-fried Twinkies have been a staple of so-called fair food, the treats served at county and state fairs, since at least 2002, where it was invented in Brooklyn, according to the New York Times. Here’s how the paper described it:
Something magical occurs when the pastry hits the hot oil. The creamy white vegetable shortening filling liquefies, impregnating the sponge cake with its luscious vanilla flavor (sure, it’s imitation, but nevertheless potent). The cake itself softens and warms, nearly melting, contrasting with the crisp, deep-fried crust in a buttery and suave way. The shop adds its own ruby-hued berry sauce, which provides a bit of tart sophistication.
What you get from the Walmart (the only place selling them for the first three months) freezer aisle isn’t quite the same. Available in vanilla or chocolate, a box of seven running $4.76, they come partially fried. You finish them off in an oven, toaster, or frying pan. Hostess worked with Walmart, which suggested the idea and opened a food lab for development.
By providing the opening exclusive (and, who knows?, maybe a cut of the profits), Hostess gets to bring a new old concept to market. According to the AP, the Hostess vice president of marketing said they had a “retro cool factor.” (If 2002 is really retro, I’m really depressed.)
Most importantly, it’s a product whose general concept, if not exact execution, was not only developed by others but proven for 14 years in public trials. It should be market ready. And with each vanilla Twinkie running nine grams of fat and 220 calories, compared with the four grams of fat and 130 calories of the regular type, maybe Hostess can sell gym memberships afterward.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
See also: How Pokémon Go Is Driving Insane Amounts of Sales at Small, Local Businesses
