Twinkies are back! The brand that brought us such a suggestively named range of products – Twinkies, Ding-Dongs, Snow-Balls, Ho-ho’s – is back, with new owners, after Hostess plunged in its fight with unionized workers, who strangled the company with their demands, as Hostess attempted to reorganize itself during bankruptcy with restructuring expert Greg Rayburn. Or as the union workers might say, Hostess just never innovated their products to keep up. Whatever the case, Twinkies have been missed, as well as other Hostess products, and a range of competitors have stepped in to take in the gaping hole in empty-calorie snack food.
The boxes will look the same, though they will say “The Sweetest Comeback in the History of Ever,” a kinda cutesy tagline. We will be seeing them return on July 15.
The company is up and running, but some things are different. As the original Hostess went down, they shed product brands one by one, selling Wonder Bread to Flower Foods and Little Debbie snack cakes to Drake’s Cakes. Metropoulos & Co. and Apollo bought Twinkies and some other cakes for $410 million.
There are only four factories in the leaner more efficient Hostess set up, as opposed to 11, and only some of the previous workers are coming back, and that without their union. Though they will be selling fewer products, they may take the advice of the union protesters and expand their lineup. Their products basically feature spongy cakes, creamy filling, and thick frosting, but they could experiment with various flavors and add something crunchy.
“We can have some fun with that mixture,” the president of Hostess, said Rich Seban, according to the Huffington Post. He also suggested they could get into the gluten-free market, add fiber, lower sugar or sodium, per current trends in diet.
And so the extended lent of Twinkie absent is over.