Matthew Mead / AP

In this image taken on March 18, 2013, fruit punch spring cupcakes are shown in Concord, N.H.

Don’t worry, you have not eaten your last cupcake.

Although Wall Street has declared the crash of the cupcake, it’s not over on Main Street. What is waning is the over-marketed, mass-produced, lesser-quality cupcakes that helped saturate the market and cooked-up some eye-rolling gimmicks, food trend experts say.

“No more meatloaf cupcakes,” pleaded chef Melissa  Trimmer, the lead pastry chef instructor at Le Cordon Bleu Chicago.

Many argue that the crashing of Crumbs stock price is not a bellwether for the entire cupcake market, especially small, quality bakeries that make more than one product.

Crumbs Bake Shop, Inc., which makes cupcakes and colossal cupcakes, closed Monday at $1.29 on Nasdaq. When it started trading in June 2011, its price climbed as high as $13.30 per share, with a market value of $58.9 million.

Maybe early investors should have talked to Georgette Blau, president of On Location Tours, who said the cupcake frenzy was already dipping among the tourists flocking to her “Sex and the City” tours. The HBO show helped launch the craze years earlier with Magnolia Bakery as the lead beneficiary. Then, her tourists demanded their cupcakes come from Magnolia. Now: “They don’t care,” Blau said.

The decline started shortly after the release of “Sex and the City 2,” Blau said. That was May 2010.

The $250 million cupcake market ranks high among the biggest snack trends of the past decade, according to Technomic, Inc., a research and consulting firm that specializes in the food industry. Cupcakes were the latest Krispy Kreme donut, (which are still big internationally) and frozen yogurt, (which had its first moment in the 1980s and is back now.)

The end of a trend is not a bad thing, according to even some of the cupcake fans.

“It kind of brought back the corner bakery,” said Thomas Vaccaro, the dean of baking and pastry arts at Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. “Now all of these bakeries are sustaining themselves.”

The key, he said, is to make a good quality product and diversify. One of the legacies of the cupcake trend, he said, is that consumers are conditioned to look for an attractive, high-quality, sweet treat in a smaller portion size.

“I saw a lot of consumers trying new things they wouldn’t have tried before because they were in cupcake form,” Vaccaro said.

Allison Robicelli is among the small bakers who got a giant boost from the cupcake craze but all along has offered other classic American desserts such as whoopee pies, brownies, cookies and pound cakes. Based in Brooklyn, the Robicelli's business she runs with her husband has grown more than 150 percent for each of the past five years, she said.

The cupcake backlash, she said, was mainly the fault of a sustained media frenzy and big corporate interests trying to apply a fast-food model.

While some small bakers such as Robicelli's are still growing, many smaller markets are seeing a cupcake boom. “There are still cities where cupcake shops are opening and doing quite well,” said Mary Chapman, the director of product innovation at Technomic.

Indeed, while Crumbs and other cupcakeries are contracting in some markets, they are expanding in others. 

“The current love of high-end cupcakes that began in urban markets on the East and West Coasts is now spreading across America.  Malls present a new world of opportunity – in the past two weeks, we opened new locations in key malls in Cherry Hill, N.J. and Lancaster, PA,” Julian R. Geiger, Crumbs president and CEO, said in a statement to TODAY.com. 

As for the next trend, no one knows for certain, but just about everyone is willing to guess. Options thrown about include macarons, pie, chocolate-covered bacon, cream puffs, eclairs, churros, hot chocolate, Italian ices, Madeleines, waffles, soft pretzels and Financiers. Healthier (even if that means just in portion size,) gluten-free and vegan offerings are also on the rise.

And there are still some who see cupcakes as the next cupcake. “It’s not really going away,” said Stephen Zagor, the dean of culinary business and industry studies at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. “It’s just sort of moderated.”

Budweiser handout

Budweiser cans will get "a little bit of a waistline," said Pat McGauley, the vice president of innovation at Anheuser-Busch.

Budweiser is about to get a makeover by cinching its waist and adding some heft to its cans.

Anheuser-Busch on May 6 will add a new shape to its lineup, selling its primary Budweiser beer in cans with twice the aluminum and a 10-degree indentation meant to evoke the brand’s traditional red bowtie graphic.

The cans will get “a little bit of a waistline,” Pat McGauley, the vice president of innovation at Anheuser-Busch told NBC News.

The taste of the beer will stay the same, and the traditional-shapes and sizes of the other cans are not going away. “We’re not getting rid of anything,” McGauley said.

The new cans are meant to appeal to new Budweiser drinkers. “Trend seekers are always looking for something new and they are often younger, the Millennials,” he said.

The company’s test marketing indicated it will appeal to both men and women. The cans will be more rigid and harder to crush.

The bowtie cans will be manufactured on a one-of-a-kind machine in Newbergh, N.Y., designed by Belvac Production Machinery, Inc. The empty cans will be transported to Los Angeles and Williamsburg, Va., to be filled with beer.

Sold in eight-packs, individual cans will hold 11.3 ounces of beer, amounting to about 137 calories.
 
Although this is the first time Anheuser-Busch has changed the shape of its cans, it has rolled out other sizes and packaging in recent years.

Two years ago the company started making 8 ounce cans, which have proved popular, McGauley said. In the past year it has also partnered with the NFL to introduce team-specific packaging. The next change on tap will come this summer as the West Coast will get 25- ounce cans, adding an extra-ounce option to Budweiser’s single-serve offerings.

Related: The next big thing? New beer can goes topless

Last summer’s drought has come home to roost in the price you’ll be paying for those Super Bowl party chicken wings.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Thursday that chicken prices were up 6 percent in December, versus a year earlier. That's more than triple how much overall food prices have risen over the same time.

Food economists had been warning that the price of foods such as meats and dairy would likely rise because of the summer’s severe drought.

In the case of poultry, the drought led to a rise in prices for the grains that are typically used to feed animals such as chickens and turkeys. That, in turn, has pushed up the price of the chickens.

There are other factors that also are making chicken wings in particular more expensive this year, said Ryan Koory, an economist with IHS Global Insights who specializes in agriculture.

Last year, Koory said there was a glut in supply for chickens that led some farmers to decrease the number of chickens they produced. That in turn started to push prices up.

In addition, he said, in the past year and a half or so consumers have increasingly been turning to cheaper types of chicken, such as dark meat and wings, over pricier parts of the chicken such as chicken breasts. 

All that will likely translate into higher prices when you go to buy your chicken wings for next Sunday's matchup between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers.

The National Chicken Council also said the rise in corn prices resulted in slightly fewer chickens being produced. The trade group is expecting 1.23 billion chicken wings to be consumed on Super Bowl weekend, a 1 percent decline from last year, because of the lower supply.

Despite the higher prices, Koory said chicken remains a better deal than other protein options.

“It’s still the cheapest meat, in comparison to a pork or beef,” Koory said.

Chicken wing lovers who are on a budget could have something to look forward to next year. If the weather cooperates and farmers don’t have to deal with a drought this summer, Koory said chicken prices should start to go down toward the end of 2013.

That means your chicken wings could be cheaper when you host that Super Bowl Sunday party in 2014.

Related: Fingerlickin' good! Best chicken wings in America

Three Babes Bakeshop

Give the gift of pie! Three Babes Bakeshop is among the many American purveyors selling delicious gifts this holiday season.

Give yummy gifts to the food lovers in your life, with just a couple clicks. All of these delicious products are American-made and available by mail order. You might even want to send yourself some!

Savory
Sommer Hof farms' cheese biscuits
This long-time caterer in upstate New York had to give up her party business just to keep with the demand for her delicious cheddar cheese biscuits. Made with top quality ingredients like Cabot cheddar cheese, sweet cream butter, wheat flour and spices--you can't eat just one! Sommer Hof cheddar cheese biscuit tin, $20.

Olympic provisions
The owner of this Portland, Ore.-based butcher/charcuterie/restaurant grew up with a Greek father who cured his own meat at home. Now he has made a business out of his father's hobby. He starts his salami with a local supply of all-natural, antibiotic-free pork that he and his staff butcher and combine with hand-ground spices. The result is an incredibly smooth and creamy product, with a pungent pork flavor. Sausage sampler of four (including cacciatore, salami nola, sopressata and finocchiona), $40.

Suzy Sirloin's sliders
The Suzy behind Suzy Sirloin is member of the Strassburger family, which has been delivering top quality prime and aged beef to the best steakhouses in the country for five generations. Suzy, realizing that consumers were growing more health-conscious thereby wanting leaner, all-natural meats, started this company to provide superior American farm-raised beef, pork, lamb and veal that have no hormones or antibiotics and are 90 percent lean. A family favorite: the Kids Cuts sliders. Kids Cuts, $99 for 2 packs each of beef, veal, lamb and turkey sliders.

Belle Chevre
This award-winning cremerie in rural Alabama is run by a woman who, years ago, fell in love with chevre. Her small company uses European farmstead techniques so the cheese takes on a mild and unique flavor. Each cheese is hand made, but new to her offerings are cheese-making kits that come with all you need to make your own goat cheese at home. Play date gift box, $50, includes 4 varieties of chevre; DIY cheese kit, $29.95.

Back to the Roots mushroom kit
This company was founded by two UC Berkeley students who got the idea during a class lecture about growing mushrooms on recycled coffee grounds. After experimenting in their fraternity kitchen, they piqued the interested of Whole Foods. Three years later they reuse 3.6 million pounds of coffee grounds from Peet's coffee and they help families grow over 135,000 pounds of fresh food at home. Mushroom kit, $19.95, grows up to 1.5 pounds of oyster mushrooms in as little as 10 days.

Snacks
Krave jerky
Using top quality all-natural ingredients, the jerky comes in a variety of flavors such as basil citrus and lemon garlic turkey, smoky grilled teriyaki beef and pineapple orange beef. It's even 97 percent fat free! Sampler pack, $35 for five bags.

Nothin' But snack bars
Started by a single mother in Westport, Connecticut, Nothin' But premium snack bars are made with organic oats, nuts, seeds, dried fruits, organic cane sugar, olive oil and honey. All bars are created in small batches and shipped within 72 hours of baking. Flavors include chocolate coconut almond, cherry cranberry almond, ginger lemon cashew, and peanut butter banana chocolate. $48 for a dozen.

Sweets
Three Babes Bakeshop pies
Friends since third grade, the two (yes, it's really just two) babes behind this California pie business have been baking together for 15 years. They source most of their ingredients from local farmers and all ingredients are organic. Try their bourbon pecan or honey walnut pies with classic crusts or try their bittersweet chocolate pecan pie with a homemade gluten-free graham cracker crust. Bittersweet chocolate pecan, bourbon pecan, salty honey walnut pies, $35.

Brown Butter Cookie Company
Two sisters started this company four years ago in the small California beach town of Cayucos. Now they have 30 employees who help them brown the butter and hand roll each brown butter sea salt cookie. The cookies are sweet and salty--the sisters' secret version of shortbread. They come in several varieties: original, spice, cocoa, espresso, coconut lime and gluten-free cocoa mint. Brown butter sea salt cookies, $12.95 a dozen.

Perl Girl Baking rugelah
Started by two sisters who grew up in a baking family and have focused their business on the classic Jewish pastries, rugelah, adding their own twist to them. Try their peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and chocolate, or fig and almond varieties, $20 per pound (about 2 dozen).

Notti Toffee
Hand-made in the economically hard hit Alleghany County of North Carolina, this toffee company was started with the intent of creating jobs. The special family recipe was given to the company's owner by her mother-in-law and for 15 years she made the toffee for her friends and family at Christmastime, to which the response was always "This is so good, you should sell it."  When the economy turned in 2009, she decided to go for it and now employs several fellow Appalachian women. Notti toffee pail, from $20.

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• 5 beers that taste like Christmas
• Perfect pork: Paula Deen makes holiday ham 4 ways
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Courtesy Starbucks

Starbucks's $450 gift card made of metal will go on sale this Friday at noon eastern. If you notice your stocking drooping a bit more than usual on its hook this year, perhaps it's holding one of these 20 gram cards made of etched stainless steel and available in a limited run of 5,000 through the luxury shopping site Gilt.com. Existing Starbucks cardholders will get first dibs at noon ET on Thursday.

The card is loaded with $400 worth of coffee purchasing value. It costs more than $50 to make each one, Starbucks senior manager of global brand PR Linda Mills told TODAY. The cards also grant the bearer instant Starbucks Rewards™ Gold Level, which lets them earn free food and drink after making 12 purchases. Usually a card holder would have to make 30 purchases in 12 months to gain that status.

The gift card offering comes on the heels of a $7 large "Costa Rica Finca Palmilera" coffee that Starbucks is selling in only 48 stores, nearly all in Seattle and Portland. Large regular brews normally go for $2.20.

While the market play of a luxe offering in a recessionary time can seem counterintuitive, or snobbish, it might actually be pretty smart. Usually in hard times, it's the sale of cheap creature comforts and vices that survive, like candy, cigarettes, and yes, coffee, along with the super-high end markets.

If you buy your daily $1.50 tall drip, you will be set for 266 days.

I also harbor a serious love for good design and like the idea of turning the humble gift card, a flimsy mechanism of semi-virtual money, into a coveted object of substance. Having such a hefty reminder in your wallet could also be a way to make sure this card, unlike most gift cards that die in desk drawers and the bottom recesses of purses, actually gets used.

Related story:

• Starbucks plans 3,000 new shops in the Americas

Sofa King Juicy Burger

What's in a name? If you never heard this middle-school joke that's been going around for decades, try saying "Sofa King Juicy" three times fast.

Sofa King Juicy Burger sparked a flame-broiled controversy in Chattanooga, Tenn., after a local columnist fretted that he wanted to "shield" his kids from the sign so he wouldn't have to explain the yet-to-be-unveiled burger joint's name. (If you never heard this middle-school joke that's been going around for decades, try saying "Sofa King Juicy" three times fast.)

Business partners Greg Beairsto and Jeff Brakebill told TODAY that one of the things that surprised them after their story spread online was the number of people who still don't get the name. Although they're not surprised that the name has drawn some local ire in the town of 170,136. "We are in the buckle of the Bible Belt," Beairsto said. "It's a red state."

The name -- which Beairsto said the pair figured out "by rolling around the floor laughing. We never considered another name" -- is a double entendre. There's the joke, but the duo spent six months traveling from Manhattan to Memphis chowing down on burgers to figure out their perfect patty recipe, and the result, they assured us, are burgers that really are exceptionally juicy.

There will also be an actual sofa in the 1,500-square-foot facility at the corner of Dayton Boulevard and Signal Mountain Boulevard in Chattanooga, the color of "nasty '50's Naugahyde." So when you sit on it, you really will feel like a member of royalty. The $1 Pabst Blue Ribbons and other dollar canned beers will also help in that department. 

"It's just who we are," said Beairsto. "We love food, we love the food experience. I'm a 22-year-old trapped in a 50-year-old's body."

While the name may be silly, the burgers are for real. The pair will use only grass-fed locally sourced beef, ground daily 20 minutes up the road. Grass-fed tastes so much better than traditional grain-fed, said Beairsto, because, "it's like when you eat your mom's chocolate cake versus a cake from Wal-Mart."

Brakebill added that the result is a patty that's "less fatty" with better beef taste. "Big hydroponically grown lettuce" will go on the burgers, he said, along with fresh local tomatoes and an "awesome" bun.

The original plan was to grind the meat on-site. Instead, they're putting in a "milkshake laboratory," visible to guests where "milkshake scientists" sporting labcoats and goggles will blend in liquid nitrogen to freeze the in-house ice cream mix into a frosty delight.

"It's unreal," said Brakebill.

"Kids are gonna go bananas," said Beairsto.

That is, if their ears and eyes haven't already been corrupted by the foul name, right? 

Beairsto scoffs. "I'll give you a million dollars if you can find me a 10-year-old that gets the name without adult intervention," he said. "It boils down to parenting."

To parents who want to control everything their kids see, he says, "Godspeed."

"There's no rule book," said Beairsto. "You gotta fill their toolbox with the right tools."

Sometimes those toolboxes are a little lighter than others.

"And some of them have rusty old tools from the '20s that their grandparents gave them," said Beairsto.

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• Sign up for our TODAY newsletter

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Courtesy Topps, Inc.

Bazooka's new packaging ditches its former red, white and blue design and signature comics.

By Scott Stump, TODAY contributor

Bazooka Joe has told his last corny joke. 

In a bid to market its product to a new generation, Bazooka Candy Brands is getting rid of the Bazooka Joe comics on its gum wrappers and replacing them with brain teasers, activities, and codes that will unlock content on BazookaJoe.com, according to a report by The New York Times. The comics were known for their corny jokes and Bazooka Joe sidekicks like the turtleneck-clad Mort, but only 7 percent of children between six and 12 have heard of Bazooka Joe, according to E-Poll Market Research figures cited by the Times. 

Bazooka Joe comics have been included with the gum since 1953, but by January, the redesigned packaging and logo will begin appearing in retailers like Target, 7-Eleven and Kroeger that had previously not been carrying Bazooka gum. The old red, white and blue boxes and wrappers will be replaced by a graffiti look with louder colors created by Goodwin Design Group. The redesign is one component of Bazooka’s first marketing campaign in five years, which will also include television commercials and online advertising. 

“What we’re trying to do with the relaunch is to make the brand relevant again to today’s kids,” Anthony Trani, vice president of marketing at Bazooka Candy Brands, told the New York Times.

Bazooka gum has been around since 1947 but has seen its sales dip in recent years, including a projected 48 percent decline between 2007 and 2012. While many adults will remember buying the gum at penny candy stores by the individual piece, it will now be sold in packs of 10 pieces. Half the pieces will be a new blue raspberry flavor, and the other half will be the traditional Bazooka gum flavor. The pieces will also be bigger, going from 4.5 grams to 6 grams. (Dentyne Ice is 1.5 grams). 

“Instead of a cheesy joke, we wanted to have a fun, engaging activity for kids, but the purpose wasn’t to not include Bazooka Joe,’’ Trani said. “To me it is all about doing one thing really well, and that is refreshing the Bazooka brand.”

Ken Carbone, the founder of a Manhattan branding and design firm, told the New York Times that he believes the new design “feels right for today,’’ but thinks maybe Bazooka should not have entirely scrapped its old design. 

“I think this is a little bit of an overreach because they had some equity and authenticity” in the original packaging, Carbone said. 

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Video: Uglydoll donates $150,000 of toys to TODAY toy drive

Bret Hartman / REUTERS

A box of Hostess Twinkies is seen on the shelves at a Wonder Bread Hostess Bakery Outlet on Friday in Glendale, Calif.

Hostess Brands said Tuesday night that it failed to reach a deal in mediation with the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco and Grain Millers Union.

The bankrupt maker of Twinkies and Ding Dongs said it will have no further comment until a hearing scheduled for Wednesday at 11 a.m ET before the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. 

A union representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

More: 'Naughty and Nice' stores named by Consumer Reports

The ailing company, which also makes Wonder Bread and Drake's cakes, sought permission from bankruptcy court on Monday to liquidate its business, claiming that its operations were crippled by the bakers' strike and that winding down was the best way to preserve its dwindling cash.

On Friday, Hostess closed 33 factories and announced plans to lay off 18,500 workers over an acrimonious labor dispute. But on Monday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain urged the parties to come to an agreement through mediation. 

Most insiders had anticipated that the two sides would come to an agreement, but the union and company could not find common ground. 

More: How to save money by shopping ‘like a man’ 

The company has blamed union wages and pension costs for contributing to its unprofitably. Hostess Chief Executive Gregory Rayburn has also said the company's labor contracts have deterred would-be bidders for the company and its assets. 

Here's what each side previously agreed to:

Teamster Union concessions:

• 8 percent immediate pay cuts, which would go down to 5 percent next year
• Hostess will reduce contributions to the health plan by 17 percent
• Hostess will freeze pension contributions until 2015

Management concessions:

• Gave Teamsters 25 percent share of company stock
• Gave Teamsters two seats on the board
• Gave Teamsters a $100 million claim in bankruptcy
• Won't permanently freeze pensions contributions
• Former CEO's head on a platter: board ousted Brian Driscoll in March, 2012, after it was revealed his salary was tripled to $2.5 million at the same time he demanded steep pay cuts for workers

The next step is to go back to the bankruptcy judge, who will hold in his hands the fate of the 82-year-old company and its well-known brands. 

In the coming months, several different scenarios could play out, depending on whether a buyer emerges for the company's brands.

More: Where's work? Best jobs for any age, area

"There's a lot of goodwill that comes with the brand name," said  John Pottow, a bankruptcy law professor at the University of Michigan. "A lot of companies could buy the name and recipe for Twinkies and make them."

Potential buyers wouldn't have to make the snack foods at Hostess factories either. They could make them in new facilities not burdened under old worker agreements that, for instance, required employing separate drivers for two different kinds of Hostess products rather than trucking them together. Among the alternatives:

Twinkies get absorbed by a big American conglomerate
Some of the likely suitors include ConAgra, Tastycakes maker Flowers Food, or McKeeFoods, makers of Little Debbie. These companies would likely seek to attach the Twinkies to a more efficient delivery system. For instance, does it really make sense to deliver Twinkies in their own special Twinkies trucks?

"Twinkie The Kid" trades his cowboy hat for a sombrero...
A Mexican firm, like Grupo Bimbo, which Forbes reports put in a bid for Hostess several years ago, could move production south of the border. A South American company could get access to lower sugar prices and a cheaper non-unionized workforce. Or, they could keep product in the US, but make them in a non-unionized factory.

...or develops a Canadian accent.
A Canadian company called Saputo has the Canadian rights to Hostess brand products. They're not affected at all by the Hostess liquidation and they could conceivably arrange it to sell Twinkies in America. 

Twinkies dies
Pure speculation: No one buys the Twinkies recipe. Fans are forced to make their own at home. Prices for unopened boxes of Twinkies skyrocket on eBay. An "Occupy Twinkies" movement launches to build an unauthorized Twinkies knockoff factory with no leaders and online-only sales... and is surprisingly profitable.

Related: Relax, Twinkies likely to live on

Court filings showed  that the company is asking for permission to pay $1.75 million in retention bonuses to 19 different managers as an incentive for sticking around during the liquidation process. 

The U.S. trustee, Hope Davis, an official appointed by the Justice Department to protect the interest of creditors, objected to this idea, filing a motion on Monday which argued that Hostess officials "have failed to demonstrate that the proposed bonuses are true incentive bonuses and not disguised retention payments."

Davis also moved to convert the bankruptcy from a Chapter 11 to a Chapter 7. That would take control of the wind-down proceedings away from Hostess and into the hands of a court-appointed trustee.

More: Is 25 percent tip the new normal? Expert says... 

In their joinder filed Monday, the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union said that "blaming the BCTGM for the Company’s liquidation is no more credible than blaming an isolated gust of wind for blowing over a tree, when it was the tree’s shallow, rotted root structure that was actually responsible."

But kids, both young and old, don't care about the blame game. They want to know whether they'll still be able to find their favorite creme-filled yellow cake treat on the shelves.

The decades-old brand is legendary in consumers' minds and evokes strong feelings of nostalgia in every bite. Some still remember the brand's signature character "Twinkie The Kid" lassoing it up on early television commercials and proclaiming "Big Delight in Every Bite!"

More: The highest paid actor in America is... 

The foodstuff has even entered the legal canon. "The Twinkie Defense" was famously, and successfully, used to argue that a suspect on trial for murder suffered from depression and that his high-sugar diet was a symptom of this mental state.

Ben Popken and Reuters contributed to this report. 

Twinkie the Kid’s ride into the sunset hit a hurdle Monday when Hostess Brands, unions and lenders agreed to mediation to try to save the company, and its spongy, yellow cake, from liquidation. 

The decision staves off, for a couple of days at least, Hostess’ plans to shut down its 33 factories and lay off 18,500 workers after an acrimonious labor dispute that could lead to the end of the 82-year-old company and its well-known brands such as Twinkies, Ho-Hos, Sno-Balls and Wonder bread. 

During the hearing, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain urged the parties to come to an agreement through mediation rather than through a public, and costly, hearing. The court called a short recess while the lawyer for the baker's union phoned his client to see if the union would agree to a mediation process tomorrow.

After the recess, the sides agreed to a mediation session Tuesday at 1 p.m. ET to try to work things out. If they can't resolve it, and come to an understanding of the underlying motives behind the worker strike that the company said crippled its business, the bankruptcy hearing will resume Wednesday at 11 a.m ET.

The sides will probably come to an agreement  on Tuesday, John Pottow, a bankruptcy law professor at the University of Michigan, told TODAY. The biggest sign, he said, is that the Teamsters were on board.

"The Teamsters aren't pussycats," said Pottow. "If they're saying 'this is as good as it gets,' that's a pretty strong signal to me."

Wait a moment, so they were playing poker with our childhood memories all along?

"The bakery union probably thought management was bluffing," Pottow said. After Hostess filed for permission to liquidate Friday, it became clear they weren't.

Court filings show that the company is asking for permission to pay $1.75 million in retention bonuses to 19 different managers as an incentive for sticking around during the liquidation process. Hostess Brands CEO Gregory Rayburn has publicly blamed the unions for the company's demise.

The U.S. trustee, Hope Davis, an official appointed by the Justice Department to protect the interest of creditors, objected to this idea, filing a motion this morning which argued that Hostess officials "have failed to demonstrate that the proposed bonuses are true incentive bonuses and not disguised retention payments."

Davis also moved to convert the bankruptcy from a chapter 11 to a chapter 7. That would take control of the winddown proceedings away from Hostess and into the hands of a court-appointed trustee.

In their joinder filed today, the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union said that "blaming the BCTGM for the Company’s liquidation is no more credible than blaming an isolated gust of wind for blowing over a tree, when it was the tree’s shallow, rotted root structure that was actually responsible."

But kids, both young and old, don't care about the blame game. They want to know whether they'll still be able to find their favorite creme-filled yellow cake treat on the shelves.

The decades-old brand is legendary in consumers' minds and evokes strong feelings of nostalgia in every bite. Some still remember the brand's signature character "Twinkie The Kid" lassoing it up on early television commercials and proclaiming "Big Delight in Every Bite!" The foodstuff has even entered the legal canon. "The Twinkie Defense" was famously, and successfully, used to argue that a suspect on trial for murder suffered from depression and that his high-sugar diet was a symptom of this mental state.

In advance of the interim hearing, Hostess Brands spokesman Tom Becker told TODAY he "wasn't going to comment on what could happen" or speculate on the proceeding's outcome.

While today's results are likely to be minimal, in the coming months several different scenarios could play out, depending on who the buyer is, or if there is a buyer at all.

"There's a lot of Goodwill that comes with the brand name," said Pottow, "A lot of companies could buy the name and recipe for Twinkies and make them." They wouldn't have to make them at the Twinkies factories either. They could make them in new facilities not burdened under old worker agreements that, for instance, required employing separate drivers for two different kinds of Hostess products rather than trucking them together.

Twinkies get absorbed by a big American conglomerate

Some of the likely suitors include ConAgra, Tastycakes maker Flowers Food, or McKeeFoods, makers of Little Debbie. These companies would likely seek to attach the Twinkies to a more efficient delivery system. For instance, does it really make sense to deliver Twinkies in their own special Twinkies trucks?

"Twinkie The Kid" trades his cowboy hat for a sombrero...

A Mexican firm, like Grupo Bimbo, which Forbes reports put in a bid for Hostess several years ago, could move production south of the border. A South American company could get access to lower sugar prices and a cheaper non-unionized workforce. Or, they could keep product in the US, but made in a non-unionized factory.

...or develops a Canadian accent.

A Canadian company called Saputo has the Canadian rights to Hostess brand products. They're not affected at all by the Hostess liquidation and they could conceivably arrange it to sell Twinkies in America. 

Twinkies dies

Pure speculation: No one buys the Twinkies recipe. Fans are forced to make their own at home. Prices for unopened boxes of Twinkies skyrocket on eBay. An "Occupy Twinkies" movement launches to build an unauthorized Twinkies knockoff factory with no leaders and online-only sales... and is surprisingly profitable.

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Many bars have seen slower traffic since the recession reduced manufacturing jobs in places such as Milwaukee, Wis., according to industry analysts.

MILWAUKEE — A tattooed man with a goatee shakes five dice in a black cup, slams it down on the bar and watches as they come to rest among half-full beer bottles and empty shot glasses.

"Nothin," he says in disgust as he quickly slaps down a $20 bill to buy another round of drinks, in a U.S. ritual of beer drinking after work that is undergoing a gradual decline.

"I used to get the third-shift Allen Bradley guys in the morning, but they have cut and cut jobs," said Terry Zadra, owner of the 177-year-old Zad's Roadhouse on the south side of Milwaukee.

The bar is just blocks from an industrial plant owned by Rockwell Automation, which bought Allen Bradley, a factory equipment company, in 1985.

One result of the 2008-2009 recession that reduced manufacturing jobs in places such as Milwaukee has been slower traffic at some bars, and sluggish beer sales nationwide over the past four years, according to industry analysts.

"Contrary to the myth that people go out and drown their sorrows, the truth is that beer drinkers are pretty responsible people and when they have to cut back, they're cutting back on their pleasures," said Chris Thorne, vice president of communications at the Beer Institute, a Washington-based trade group.

According to the institute, beer drinkers last year in the United States drank 203.4 million barrels, about 5 percent less than in 2008.

More concern about healthy living, stiffer drunk-driving laws and measures that ban smoking in places such as taverns have hit beer sales during the last couple of decades in Milwaukee and throughout the country.

"There has been a definite shift from the on-premise to the off-premise consumption," said Pete Madland, executive director of the Tavern League of Wisconsin. "The smoker, for instance, is going to the liquor store, buying a 12-pack of beer and going home."

Over the past few decades, it has become much less acceptable in the business community to have a drink during lunch or tip a few after work with colleagues.

"Society looks at that person that has a glass of beer with his burger like he has a drinking problem," Madland said.

A glimmer of hope for the industry is the high-end craft beer segment, which has seen sales increase by 14 percent during the first half of 2012 compared with the same period last year, according to the Beer Institute.

These regional and local brews are more expensive and tend to be more recession-proof than mass-consumption brands like Miller Lite and Bud Light.

"Those occupations that weathered the storm of the Great Recession and then a very weak recovery ... they were always able to afford a high-end beer," Thorne said. "We would still like to see that American pilsner part of the brewing market get back its share."

Despite the cultural and economic pressures, beer remains synonymous with Milwaukee, where brewers such as Fred Miller, Joseph Schlitz, Val Blatz and Frederick Pabst built their empires more than a century ago.

Even after heavy manufacturing of farm equipment, marine diesels and cranes became the dominant force in Milwaukee's economy, MillerCoors remains an institution, brewing about 10 million barrels of beer each year on the city's west side.

The love affair the city has for beer remains strong, evident in its Major League baseball team — the Milwaukee Brewers — paying homage to the city's beer makers while playing in Miller Park, sponsored by MillerCoors.

While beer consumption nationwide may be down, in Wisconsin it has increased a bit. In the first eight months of 2012, about 2 percent more beer was sold than the same period of 2011, the state revenue department said.

Milwaukee also remains a blue-collar town with a fair number of neighborhood taverns such as Zad's Roadhouse still serving a shot and a beer to the working class from early morning until late into the night, according to Milwaukee historian John Gurda.

"The scene is far from gone. I'm talking about saloons and bars being the communal living rooms of Milwaukee, and in many neighborhoods, that's still very much the case," Gurda said.

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Mike Blake / Reuters file

Gas prices have been falling sharply from near-record highs seen recently in California, where supplies were constrained by a major refinery shutdown.

It's no surprise that voters in Tuesday's presidential election identified the economy as the No. 1 issue in the campaign, far ahead of health care and the federal budget deficit.

But it was a surprise that nearly four in 10 voters identified rising prices as the biggest economic problem facing people like them. That's nearly as many voters as said that unemployment was the biggest problem. 

After all, unemployment has long been considered the toughest and most intractable economic problem, with more than 12 million people out of work and actively looking for a job. The unemployment rate, which hit a 25-year high of 10 percent early in Obama's presidency, has only fallen below 8 percent recently.

Meanwhile inflation has generally been running well under 2 percent, and Federal Reserve bankers repeatedly have said they feel comfortable that low inflation allows them to keep interest rates at rock-bottom levels.

Yet in an exit poll of more than 25,000 voters conducted by NBC News, 37 percent identified rising prices as the biggest problem facing people like them.

Unemployment was cited by 38 percent, only slightly more than the number who said inflation was their top economic concern. Taxes were named by 14 percent and the housing market was the top concern of 8 percent.

Chris Christopher, director of U.S. and global consumer economics for IHS Global Insight, said it makes sense that people would point to rising prices because it's something people deal with on an everyday basis.

“It’s a personal question: What affects them directly?” he said.

Unemployment is only the most worrisome issue for people who are either out of a job or fear they will be, Christopher noted. On the other hand, almost everyone has to pay for things like food, gas, health care and housing — and likely has some sense of whether those bills are going up or staying the same.

Christopher’s research has shown that just a small increase in gas prices can affect how consumers are feeling about their finances, even though the cost of gas represents only a tiny portion of most people’s household budget.

Still, the fact that so many people named rising prices was somewhat surprising because consumer prices actually haven’t been rising all that much.

Gas prices have been falling rather sharply recently, with the exception of regional spikes related to Superstorm Sandy.

Electricity and natural gas prices, which tend to be volatile, are lower than they were a year ago, according to the government data.

Food prices are expected to go up in the coming months because of this year's severe drought, which destroyed many crops used for feed. But so far this year food prices have not risen much, in part because of unusually low fruit and vegetable prices, according to the Agriculture Department.

Overall, the USDA is projecting food prices will rise 2.5 to 3.5 percent in 2012 and 3 to 4 percent in 2013.

Christopher said he expects wage gains to continue to outpace inflation, in large part because prices have been rising so slowly.

President Barack Obama’s Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, tried to make rising prices part of his appeal for why the country needed new leadership. In the first presidential debate, he pointed out that median incomes have fallen in recent years relative to rising prices for everything from gas to food to health care.

“Under the president's policies, middle-income Americans have been buried. They're just being crushed,” Romney said.

The exit polls could be a sign that Americans share Romney’s concern about rising prices. But clearly Romney wasn’t able to convince enough people that was a good enough reason to replace Obama.

Still, the exit polls showed voters do think there is much work to be done to improve the economy. More than three-fourths of those polled said the economy is either “poor” or “not so good.”