Tastykake is the brandname for a line of
snack foodA snack is a portion of food oftentimes smaller than that of a regular meal, that is generally eaten between meals. Snacks come in a variety of forms including packaged and processed foods and items made from fresh ingredients at home....
s manufactured by the
Tasty Baking Company, currently headquartered at the Philadelphia Naval Business Center (formerly the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard) in
Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaPhiladelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
. Established in 1914 by Philip J. Baur and Herbert T. Morris and originally selling its product only in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, the company now distributes its products in several states on the East Coast and has been gradually expanding across the United States.
In April 2010, Tasty Baking entered into a purchase-and-sale agreement with TKMG Associates and its guarantor, Metro Development Company, for the sale of its Philadelphia bakery property located at Hunting Park Avenue, and its former corporate offices and distribution center located at Fox Street, for $6 million.
Varieties
The snack-sized, prepackaged desserts are diverse. Varieties include:
- Cupcakes
- Krimpets - shaped sponge cake with butterscotch icing or jelly filling.
- Kandy Kakes - chocolate-enrobed
An enrober is a machine used in the confectionery industry to coat a food item with a coating medium, typically chocolate. Foods coated by enrobers include nuts, ice cream, toffee and other miscellaneous candy items, biscuits and cookies. Enrobing is essentially a mechanized form of hand-dipping...
cakes with filling
- Junior - small two-layer cake with filling and/or icing
- Cookie Bars - long, dense, cookie-type cake.
- Kreamies - long two-layer cake with cream filling
- Pies - mini (X-inch), full size (9-inch), and extra large (24-inch) varieties
- Donuts
- Danishes
- Doublicious - variations of their standard products with extra icing or filling.
- Better For You Category - low fat/low calorie items
- Seasonal items
Product history
- 1917 - Chocolate Juniors introduced
- 1927 - Butterscotch Krimpets introduced
- 1930s - Pies: originally apple; later peach, lemon, blueberry
- 1930s - Tandy Takes (later renamed Kandy Kakes), originally chocolate only
- 1985 - Donuts
Production facilities
Tasty Baking owns and operates a major production facility in the
Nicetown neighborhoodNicetown-Tioga is a neighborhood in the North Philadelphia section of the city of Philadelphia, in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It comprises two smaller, older neighborhoods, Nicetown and Tioga, although the distinction between the two is rarely emphasized today...
of Philadelphia, between Allegheny Station and
East Falls StationEast Falls is a station located along the Manayunk/Norristown Line. It is located at Midvale Avenue & Cresson Street and includes a 51 space parking lot.-External links:** *...
along the SEPTA
Manayunk/Norristown LineThe Manayunk/Norristown Line is a SEPTA Regional Rail line running from Center City Philadelphia to the Elm Street station in Norristown, Montgomery County.-Route:...
. A second, smaller facility is located in
OxfordOxford is a borough in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. Oxford is the closest town to Lincoln University. The population was 4,315 at the 2000 census.-History:The borough was once called Oxford Crossing and Oxford Village....
, in
Chester County-State parks:*French Creek State Park*Marsh Creek State Park*White Clay Creek Preserve-Demographics:As of the 2010 census, the county was 85.5% White, 6.1% Black or African American, 0.2% Native American or Alaskan Native, 3.9% Asian, 0.0% Native Hawaiian, 1.8% were two or more races, and 2.4% were...
. The Oxford plant makes honey buns and most of the mini-donuts and donut holes under the Tastykake brand name, as well as several private-label items.
In May 2007, Tasty Baking announced it would move its
headquartersHeadquarters denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the top of a corporation taking full responsibility managing all business activities...
and main bakery to the Philadelphia Naval Business Center in
South PhiladelphiaSouth Philadelphia, nicknamed South Philly, is the section of Philadelphia bounded by South Street to the north, the Delaware River to the east and south, and the Schuylkill River to the west.-History:...
. The new bakery is located on South 26th Street, with the headquarters on Crescent Drive. The move was completed in May 2010.
Share price
The price of Tastykake stock collapsed in early 2011, falling from a closing price of $6.43 on January 4, closing at $4.05 the next day. This decline, of about one-third the share price, was accompanied by a spike in trading (from about 5,000 shares on January 4, to almost 1,000,000 the next day). This move came after a 7.4% drop in company sales during the
XXth quarter of 2010. The next week, speculation in financial circles indicated Tastykake had failed to realize the projected savings of moving to the new factory.
On April 11, 2011, media reports indicated Tastykake's leadership agreed to sell the company to
Flowers FoodsFlowers Foods, headquartered in Thomasville, Georgia, is a producer and marketer of packaged bakery foods in the United States. The company operates 39 bakeries that produce breads, buns, rolls, snack cakes, and pastries...
, of
Thomasville, GeorgiaThomasville is the county seat of Thomas County, Georgia, United States. The city is the second largest in Southwest Georgia after Albany.The city deems itself the City of Roses and holds an annual Rose Festival. The town features plantations open to the public, a historic downtown, a large...
, for $34 million in cash, or about $4 per share. (Tastykake stock closed at $1.61 per share at the end of the previous trading day.)
In popular culture
Tastykake has been a longtime sponsor of
Philadelphia PhilliesThe Philadelphia Phillies are a Major League Baseball team. They are the oldest continuous, one-name, one-city franchise in all of professional American sports, dating to 1883. The Phillies are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's National League...
broadcasts. The late Hall of Fame announcer
Harry KalasHarry Norbert Kalas was an American sportscaster, best known for his Ford C. Frick Award-winning role as lead play-by-play announcer for Major League Baseball's Philadelphia Phillies...
(1936-2009) often announced that a box of Tastykakes had been delivered to the booth between innings.
Tastykake is also a sponsor of
Philadelphia FlyersThe Philadelphia Flyers are a professional ice hockey team based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are members of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League...
hockey broadcasts. During the Flyers'
Stanley CupThe Stanley Cup is an ice hockey club trophy, awarded annually to the National Hockey League playoffs champion after the conclusion of the Stanley Cup Finals. It has been referred to as The Cup, Lord Stanley's Cup, The Holy Grail, or facetiously as Lord Stanley's Mug...
appearances in the mid-1970s, the "goal call" of
Hall of FameThe Hockey Hall of Fame is located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Dedicated to the history of ice hockey, it is both a museum and a hall of fame. It holds exhibits about players, teams, National Hockey League records, memorabilia and NHL trophies, including the Stanley Cup...
announcer
Gene Hart was, "He shoots, he scores - for a case of Tastykake!" A case of Tastykakes (18 to 24 Family Packs per case, depending on the product) was awarded to each Flyers player who scored a goal. In the early 2000s, a case of Tastykakes was awarded to the first Flyers player to score a goal in a game. , a case of Tastykakes is again awarded to each Flyer who scores a goal; it is donated to the favorite charity of that player.
Author
Janet EvanovichJanet Evanovich is an American writer. She began her career writing short contemporary romance novels under the pen name Steffie Hall, but gained fame authoring a series of contemporary mysteries featuring Stephanie Plum, a lingerie buyer from Trenton, New Jersey, who becomes a bounty hunter to...
features Tastykakes in her
Stephanie PlumStephanie Plum is a fictional character and the protagonist in a series of novels written by Janet Evanovich. She is a spunky combination of Nancy Drew and Dirty Harry, and - although a female bounty hunter - is the opposite of Domino Harvey...
mystery novels, which are set in
TrentonTrenton is the capital of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat of Mercer County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Trenton had a population of 84,913...
,
New JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
.
In
Jerry SpinelliJerry Spinelli is an author of children's novels on adolescence and early adulthood. He is best known for the novels Maniac Magee and Wringer....
's young-adult novel
Maniac MageeManiac Magee is a young adult fiction novel written by American author Jerry Spinelli and published in 1990. Exploring themes of racism and homelessness, it follows the story of an orphaned boy looking for a home in the fictional Pennsylvania town of Two Mills...
, the main character, Jeffrey Lionel "Maniac" Magee, enjoys eating Tastykake Butterscotch Krimpets. The story is set in the fictional town of Two Mills, Pennsylvania, which is based on real-life
NorristownNorristown is a municipality in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, northwest of the city limits of Philadelphia, on the Schuylkill River. The population was 34,324 as of the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Montgomery County...
, northwest of Philadelphia, where Spinelli grew up.
On
Bastille DayBastille Day is the name given in English-speaking countries to the French National Day, which is celebrated on 14 July of each year. In France, it is formally called La Fête Nationale and commonly le quatorze juillet...
(July 14), a woman dressed as
Marie AntoinetteMarie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I....
and her fellow re-enactors throw approximately 2,000 packs of Tastykakes from a tower of the
Eastern State PenitentiaryThe Eastern State Penitentiary is a former American prison in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is located on 2027 Fairmount Avenue between Corinthian Avenue and North 22nd Street in the Fairmount section of Philadelphia and was operational from 1829 until 1971...
to the public below while "Antoinette" says, "If the people have no bread, I say, 'let them eat Tastykake!'"
Tastykake's commercial jingle, which has been used for decades, is, "Nobody bakes a cake as tasty as a Tastykake".
Tastykake owns the naming rights of local sports talk radio station 610 WIP's broadcasting studio, dubbed "The Tastykake Studio", and provides staff with free treats in exchange for product promotion, and has been a running gag with hosts.
Ol' Dirty BastardRussell Tyrone Jones was an American rapper and occasional producer, who went by the stage name Ol' Dirty Bastard or simply ODB...
mentioned Tastykake in his song "Brooklyn Zoo" saying, "I create rhymes good as a Tastykake."