Hostess brands have been saved

After a much publicized bankruptcy, Hostess Foods has been in limbo for some time. (Although strangely enough, it does not seem to have affected the national supply as badly as you would think. The last time I was at the store, they had a fully stocked Hostess display. Someone had taped a hand-written note taped to the shelf that said "Hostess has gone bankrupt, please excuse supply issues.")

But now, Twinkie and Wonder Bread lovers can rejoice: Flowers Foods, Inc. has bought the brand at auction for $360 million. Although early speculation held that Mexican snack food company Grupo would buy Hostess, Flowers Foods was the only offer. Hostess was gearing up to hold an auction for the brand on Thursday, but since Flowers Foods was the only company that put an offer on the table, the auction has been canceled.

This has been an interesting situation, because it seems that many Americans have powerful childhood memories of Hostess brands, not just Twinkie and Wonder Bread but Ho Ho and Snowballs and Ding Dongs and all the rest. People put up a huge fuss over the Hostess bankruptcy, although one has to point out that maybe if everyone loved Hostess products a little more, they would have bought more of them over the years, thus saving the company from bankruptcy in the first place. (But probably not, given the company's level of managerial incompetence.)

The truth is that Twinkies just aren't all that good to begin with. They were the butt of every "processed food" joke, right up until their existence was threatened. But having had a Twinkie fairly recently, I had to admit that they were flavorless, aggressively sweet, artificially sticky and with a strangely gritty texture to the filling.

But nostalgia is a powerful force, it's true. Here's hoping Flower Foods has better luck with the brands than Hostess did. Long live Twinkie the Kid!

Image courtesy Flickr/CoolValley