I want my Hostess back!

I tried the Little Debbie's version of "ding-dongs". Not too bad. They are a lot smaller than the original Hostess. Not as sweet in taste. But comes very close.

The wife found some Hostess Zingers at a local store. 2 for a $1. I told her to get them all. 17 packs of Zingers. YUUUUMMMMMMMY

Galvatron wrote:The wife found some Hostess Zingers at a local store. 2 for a $1. I told her to get them all. 17 packs of Zingers. YUUUUMMMMMMMY

Better hold on to them! Those are now collectors items..

THANK GOD!!!
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/twinkies-real-ones-back-store-shelves-july-6C9590050
Stand down Twinkies hoarders, you can start eating your secret stash.
Twinkies will hit store shelves nationally by late July, Michael Cramer, executive vice president of Hostess Brands LLC told NBC News on Thursday. "We expect to be making and selling in July," he said. "Probably the later half of the month before the product hits the stores."
All of the classic Hostess snack brands will return, some making their return in August and September. Hostess Donettes and some of the snack cakes will be among the first to return. And "Twinkies for sure," Cramer said.
In November, all 36 Hostess Brands, Inc., plants shut down after an extended stand-off with the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union. That Hostess company has almost completely wound down its operations, selling its assets in pieces. The bulk of the Hostess Snacks brands the public knows best -- Twinkies, Cup Cakes, Ho Hos, Zingers, Ding Dongs and Suzy Q’s -- were purchased in April for $410 million by hedge funds Apollo Global Management and Metropoulos & Co. Other Hostess lines, such as Wonder bread, went to affiliates of Flowers Foods, while its Beefsteak bread brand was snatched up by Grupo Bimbo, S.A.B. de C.V.


It is the new company, Hostess Brands, LLC, that will start hiring this weekend to resume operations with 200 employees at the Dolly Madison Bakery in Columbus, Ga., one of the locations shuttered in November.
Besides the Georgia location, Hostess Brands, LLC also bought plants in Schiller Park, Ill.; Emporia, Kan.; Indianapolis, Ind.; and the Atwater Village section of Los Angeles, Cramer said. At least some of those will resume operations simultaneously with Georgia. Emporia, which is already hiring, according to listings on online job sites, will likely be among the reopened locations, he said. Corporate operations will be run out of Kansas City and Dallas.
As the hiring resumes, it will not be in conjunction with the unions, Cramer said. "We're sure not going to invite the unions in. We don't have to do it," he said. Though of course nothing prevents the workers from unionizing down the line, he said.
But when Twinkies return to the shelves after an absence of more than six months, it will find competition.

Flowers Foods, Inc., which purchased some of Hostess’ other assets, has its own Twinkies lookalikes. Its Blue Bird brand sells Bingles while its Mrs. Freshley label sells Dreamies cream-filled cakes. McKee Foods’ Little Debbie brand also makes its own Twinkies twin called a Cloud Cake. The name’s even trademarked.
A spokesman for Mexico-based Grupo Bimbo, the world’s largest bread baker and the owners of Sara Lee and Entenmann's brands in the United States, on Wednesday declined to say whether it was considering its own Twinkies competitor in the United States. But should Grupo Bimbo decide to jump into the fray, it has a pretty good options on hand.
Bimbo already makes a Twinkies lookalike in Mexico called Submarinos, which are available with vanilla, chocolate or strawberry filling. Bimbo Bakeries USA since 1997 has been importing strawberry-filled Submarinos into the United States under its Marinela brand catering to Hispanic customers. In 2012 it started importing the vanilla ones as well, a company spokesman said.
After this story was originally published, a reader sent a picture of another Twinkies clone he said recently hit shelves in Los Angeles. The packaging of the new Golden Creme Cakes state they are made by the Sara Lee division owned by Bimbo Bakeries USA. However, David Margulies, a spokesman for Bimbo Bakeries USA, said the company could not comment.
The hard-core Hostess fan will return to Hostess, but the discretionary snackers will be the key market to regain, predicted Gary Karp, the executive vice president at Technomic Inc., a food industry research and consulting firm. "Their absence has allowed people to try a variety of products that are out there," Karp said.
Karp said the only concern would be if Hostess changed any ingredients, which Cramer said will not happen.
"Everything will be as delicious and fattening as it always was," Cramer said

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/06/23/sweet-twinkies-to-hit-store-shelves-next-month/

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) – Hostess is betting on a sweet comeback for Twinkies when they return to shelves next month.
The company that went bankrupt after an acrimonious fight with its unionized workers last year is back up and running under new owners and a leaner structure. It says it plans to have Twinkies and other snack cakes back on shelves starting July 15.
Based on the outpouring of nostalgia sparked by its demise, Hostess is expecting a blockbuster return next month for Twinkies and other sugary treats, such as CupCakes and Donettes. The company says the cakes will taste the same but that the boxes will now bear the tag line “The Sweetest Comeback In The History Of Ever.”
“A lot of impostor products have come to the market while Hostess has been off the shelves,” says Daren Metropoulos, a principal of the investment firm Metropoulos & Co., which teamed up with Apollo Global Management to buy a variety of Hostess snacks.
Hostess Brands Inc. was struggling for years before it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in early 2012. Workers blamed the troubles on years of mismanagement, as well as a failure of executives to invest in brands to keep up with changing tastes. The company said it was weighed down by higher pension and medical costs than its competitors, whose employees weren’t unionized.
To steer it through its bankruptcy reorganization, Hostess hired restructuring expert Greg Rayburn as its CEO. But Rayburn ultimately failed to reach a contract agreement with its second largest union. In November, he blamed striking workers for crippling the company’s ability to maintain normal production and announced that Hostess would liquidate.
The shuttering triggered a rush on Hostess snack cakes, with stores selling out of the most popular brands within hours.
About 15,000 unionized workers lost their jobs in the aftermath.
In unwinding its business, Hostess sold off its brands in chunks to different buyers. Its major bread brands including Wonder were sold to Flowers Foods, which makes Tastykakes. McKee Foods, which makes Little Debbie snack cakes, snapped up Drake’s Cake, which includes Devil Dogs and Yodels.
Metropoulos & Co. and Apollo bought Twinkies and other Hostess cakes for $410 million.
Apollo Global Management, founded by Leon Black, is known for buying troubled brands then selling them for a profit; its investments include fast-food chains Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s. Metropoulos & Co., which has revamped then sold off brands including Chef Boyardee and Bumble Bee, also owns Pabst Brewing Co.
That could mean some cross-promotional marketing is in store.
“There is certainly a natural association with the two,” Metropoulos said. “There could be some opportunities for them to seen together.”

The trimmed-down Hostess Brands LLC has a far less costly operating structure than the predecessor company. Some of the previous workers were hired back, but they’re no longer unionized.
Hostess will also now deliver to warehouses that supply retailers, rather than delivering directly to stores, said Rich Seban, the president of Hostess who previously served as chief operating officer. That will greatly expand its reach, letting it deliver to dollar stores and nearly all convenience stores in the U.S.
Previously, he said Hostess was only able to reach about a third of the country’s 150,000 convenience stores.
Production was also consolidated, from 11 bakery plants to four – one each in Georgia, Kansas, Illinois and Indiana. The headquarters were moved from Texas to Kansas City, Mo., where Hostess was previously based and still had some accounting offices.
In the months since they vanished from shelves, the cakes have been getting a few touchups as well. For the CupCakes, the company is now using dark cocoa instead of milk chocolate to give them a richer, darker appearance.
Seban stressed that the changes were to improve the cakes, not to cut costs. Prices for the cakes will remain the same; a box of 10 Twinkies will cost $3.99.
Looking ahead, Seban sees Hostess expanding its product lineup. He noted that Hostess cakes are known for three basic textures: the spongy cake, the creamy filling and the thicker icing. But he said different textures – such as crunchy – could be introduced, as well as different flavors.
“We can have some fun with that mixture,” he said.
He also said there are many trendy health attributes the company could tap into, such as gluten-free, added fiber, low sugar and low sodium.
During bankruptcy proceedings, Hostess had said that its overall sales had been declining, although the company didn’t give a breakout on the performance of individual brands. But Seban is confident Twinkies will have staying power beyond its re-launch.
As for the literal shelf-life, Seban is quick to refute the snack cake’s fabled indestructibility.
“Forty-five days – that’s it,” he said. “They don’t last forever.”
When Hostess announced it was going out of business, some people tried to cash in by selling boxes of the snacks for an inflated price to Twinkies lovers.

Sounds like some delicious news to me!

twinkies, ding dongs, ho ho's, cup cakes, suzie q's, zingers, donettes... the list goes on....

I didn't read all that stuff, but I knew someone would buy it. The second I heard that, I no longer craved a Twinkie!