Twinkies Are Back from Bankruptcy

The Twinkie once again has survived an apocalypse , just like many people have always thought.  It is said that the only thing to survive a catastrophe is the Twinkie and they where right.  Check out this fun site designed to test the Twinkie’s limits.  A bankruptcy judge on Tuesday approved the sale of Twinkies to a pair of investment firms, one of which has said it hopes to have the cakes back on shelves by summer.

Flowers Food Inc, which makes Tastykakes snacks, picked up most of Hostess’s bread business, including its Wonder and Nature’s Pride brands for $360 million. The No. 2 U.S. baking company also bought 20 bakeries and other operations.

The Beefsteak brand of bread was sold for $31.9 million to Mexico’s Grupo Bimbo S.A.B. de C.V., the world’s largest bread maker. Bimbo already owns Entenmann’s cakes, Arnold bread and Thomas’ English Muffins.

Hostess also said on Tuesday that United States Bakery had the winning bid in the March 15 auction for its remaining bread brands: Eddy’s, Standish Farms and Grandma Emilie’s. United States Bakery agreed to pay $30.9 million.

Hostess filed for bankruptcy last year and gave up on its plans to emerge from bankruptcy in November, blaming a strike by its bakers union for its failure to emerge from Chapter 11.

The bakers union said in a statement on Tuesday its members would be “indispensable partners” in restarting the former Hostess facilities and getting the products back into stores.

The money raised from the sales will be used to pay off Hostess’s creditors, which the company said totaled $1.43 billion when it filed for bankruptcy.

Hostess will return to court on April 9 to ask U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert Drain to approve the sale to United States Bakery and a separate sale of its line of Drake’s snacks. Drake’s Coffee Cake, Ring Dings and Devil Dogs were sold to McKee Foods Corp for $27.5 million.

The Teamsters, which was the company’s largest union, appeared less optimistic.

“The liquidation and sale process has only ensured that the brands may live on — none of the buyers have made any comments to employ former Hostess workers let alone honor the terms of conditions of their employment with Hostess — in fact they specifically stipulated that none of the obligations carry forward as part of their bids,” the Teamsters said.

Hostess closed its factories in late November 2012 following a strike by the union. The company had been struggling financially for years.  Taken together, a Hostess spokesman said 29 of the bankrupt company’s 36 bakeries were sold as part of the transactions. It will be up to the new owners whether to hire back the thousands of workers who lost their jobs when the company went out of business.