Twinkies Back By Summer

If you thought Hostess’s bankruptcy was the end of Twinkies, think again. The mother of Twinkies may be on her deathbed, but America’s beloved household snack won’t be off the shelves for long. Apollo Global Management, a joint venture private equity firm, has successfully made a bid for most of Hostess’s snack cake brands as well as five of the closed bakeries.

 

The bidding process was set up to be competitive, but Apollo made a joint bid with Metropoulos & Co. for $410 million that other potential bidders decided was too high for them to top. Twinkies and other Hostess products like Wonder Bread have been out of production since November, when the company filed for bankruptcy and liquidation of assets.

 

“Our family is thrilled to have the opportunity to reestablish these iconic brands with new creative marketing ideas and renewed sales efforts and investment,” Metropoulos said in a statement. “We look forward to having America’s favorite snacks back on the shelf by this summer. We are also ecstatic to bring jobs back to many cities across the country.”

 

Indeed, the new jobs may be the best part of this deal for most Americans. Hostess had about 18,500 employees that lost their jobs after its bakeries closed. The company, which had not been doing well before, was completely devastated by the Bakery Workers union strike, and unable to strike a deal or dig itself out of its financial hole, completely collapsed.

 

Now, with Twinkies and other snack cakes set to go back on the shelves, bakeries can open and reopen, giving new (and maybe some old) employees jobs. Metropoulous has turned struggling food brands around before and hopes to do the same with its new Hostess acquisitions.

 

For now, all those Twinkies hoarders can rest assured that they won’t be running out of Twinkies for good anytime soon. When Hostess first announced it was declaring bankruptcy, customers swarmed to the stores to snatch up what was still available.

 

“These products are available while supplies last,” said Mike Siemienas, spokesman for Supervalu grocery stores. “But we’re now preparing for the fact that we won’t have them in the near future.”