Hostess sells bread brands, bakeries, depots for $390M

Hostess Brands' Wonder Bread / Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

NEW YORK Hostess Brands says it is selling most of its bread business, including the Wonder and Nature's Pride brands, to Flowers Foods (FLO) for $390 million.

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The sale also includes Butternut, Home Pride, Merita and Beefsteak breads, along with 20 bakeries and 38 depots.

20 Photos

Last shipment of Hostess Twinkies

Hostess, the creator of Twinkies and Ding Dongs, said in a statement on Friday that the company will sell its remaining brands, including its snack cakes, separately.

"We are pleased with the Flowers offers and look forward to a robust auction process that will allow these iconic brands to continue and to maximize value for all of the Company's stakeholders," said Gregory F. Rayburn, chairman and CEO of Hostess Brands. "We also continue to negotiate with parties interested in purchasing our snack cake business and remaining bread brands and expect to select additional stalking horse bidders as soon as reasonably practicable."

Hostess, which is based in Irving, Texas, announced in November that it was shutting down its business and selling its bread, snacks and cakes brands along with its 33 bakeries and other operations.

The company's demise came in its second attempt since 2004 to restructure itself under bankruptcy protection.

Flowers Foods is based in Thomasville, Ga.

[jazzerelli]

We always bought the Home Pride wheat bread, it's the best that we have found. We had a Hostess outlet store here and always shopped there, and they always had good business.

[THGdriver2]

I have a very good friend that works for Bimbo Bakery Brands ( (Stroehmann, Maiers, Sara Lee, Sunbeam, Thomas English muffins, Etc.) He thought Bimbo would buy, it was a good fit because they are right in the same East Coast area. Flowers may be the smarter Bakery he said.

[hypnotoad72]

Cause and effect.

More articles found in web searches cite reasoning as to why poor management decisions and not worker pay closed down this brand.

Indeed, if workers don't have money to spend, companies will lose profits and might have to shut down as well. So the next time a person whines about unions, they should consider their own job too.

Hostess also had to lower prices, or keep prices the same while whittling down the size of the product inside the package. With competition and a slew of other factors involved, there comes a time when a company cannot keep up or even be able to pay for costs to get to the point of profit, and if their CEO was continually making increasing amount of millions while workers continued to see pay shrink, take a guess as to what would inevitably happen. DUH.

I've not eaten Hostess stuff in DECADES. Unlike most fat Americans, I keep my processed sugar intake low. I don't eat bleached bread. Or, to use another peoples' mindset, Hostess has nothing I want. Hostess has nothing many want.

So go do your own web searching. Start with these key words:

"Hostess CEO Cuts Worker Pay, But Leaves Own Salary Untouched"

"Hostess mismanagement ruined company"

And then start seeing more of the forest instead of hacking down your favorite tree, because I doubt you would want to be a serf or a slave, either...

[frankie2fing]

Buddy, please shut the fn up. Worker pay and benefits is NEVER why a corporation shuts down. EVER. No union has caused a corporation to fail. And if you ever paid attention in school, you might have learned that.
So, some advice: If you dont know what your talking about, try not talking at all.

[MariaMarsala]

Good going. I have missed having a grill cheese sandwich with wonder bread. It just tastes different now.


Everyone was really wrong regarding hostess. The executives, and the union/employees who further destroyed the company. Now they are all out of jobs at a time when things are so lean.

I've never been part of a union because I prefer to get paid based on my job performance and not "just because" I'm doing a job.

[frankie2fing]

Yep, fool. And you get that option because of unions. You non-union idiots really should have paid attention in school.
HEY! I have an idea. Try going to China, they have NO unions. See how much you get paid based on performance THERE!
All your benefits you get today, including your 'performance pay' was fought for (and some died for) by UNIONS.
Of course, you can listen to the BS thrown out there by the GGGOP and Fox. Of course, if you do, that says more about YOU then them...

[skeezix06]

I won't be buying them. I refuse to reward future CEO's excessive greed and and what appears to be deliberate mismanagement or mal-management by buying Hostess products after the sale.

[nehicks]

So you are willing to stick it to a new company, who may not be mismanaged? You are willing to let a new company, who is counting on the loyalty of Hostess customers to make this purchase a viable one, go under just because you are mad at the way Hostess was run?

[skeezix06]

I have no problem with that at all. I prefer Wonder bread and love Hostess cupcakes but there are other brands of bread that are probably just as good and plenty of chocolate cake mixes available for the chocoholic in me.

I guess the thing to keep in mind is that nothing will ever change if we keep rewarding companies for sticking it to their employees and their creditors while running off to the latest vacation spot for retired millionaire CEO's after they suck everything out of the company but the outer shell.