Hostess Brand preparing for Bankruptcy Portection?

...Wonder Bread and Twinkie decline a sign of the times?

Hostess Brand Banruptcy Update
It is official the Hostess Brand company maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread has filed for bankruptcy (PDF of Hostess Bankruptcy Filing)

Earlier Hostess Brand Story
The company that owns Wonder Bread and Twinkie, Hostess Brands, may be facing bankruptcy. The Wall Street Journal quoting anonymous sources reports that Hostess Brands is preparing to file for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection.

The WSJ reports "the privately held Irving, Texas, company, which employs roughly 19,000 people and carries more than $860 million in debt, has been facing a cash squeeze amid high labor costs and rising prices for sugar, flour and other ingredients, according to people familiar with the matter. Those costs together have proved higher than the company's roughly $2.5 billion in annual sales, creating losses and cash shortfalls, the people said. " (source: WSJ)

The looming bankruptcy filing is actually known as Chapter 22 since Hostess Brands had previously filed for bankruptcy in 2004.

Twinkies were invented in Schiller Park, Illinois in 1930 and the sweet snack quickly became popular across the USA. 

Twinke Ingredient List

The Twinkie ingrdients list in Wikipedia is as follows: Enriched Wheat Flour, Sugar, Corn syrup, Niacin, Water, High fructose corn syrup, Vegetable and/or animal shortening - containing one or more of partially hydrogenated soybean, cottonseed or canola oil, and beef fat, Dextrose, Whole eggs, Modified corn starch, Cellulose gum, Whey, Leavenings (sodium acid pyrophosphate, baking soda, monocalcium phosphate),Salt, Cornstarch, Corn flour, Corn syrup, solids, Mono and diglycerides, Soy lecithin, Polysorbate 60, Dextrin, Calcium caseinate, Sodium stearol lactylate, Wheat gluten, Calcium sulphate, Natural and artificial flavours, Caramel colour, Yellow #5, Red #40 ^[7]

Vintage Twinkies Commerical | Video



Wonder Bread was launched in May 1921 and the white bread it became iconic for actually contained very few nutrients and so Wonder Bread became a pioneer of sorts in the nutritional additive field.

According to Wikipedia, "During the 1940s, Continental Baking began adding vitamins and minerals to Wonder Bread as part of a government-sponsored program ofenriching white bread which was notoriously deficient in vitamin and mineral content, to combat certain diseases. Known as the “Quiet Miracle”, this development is credited with greatly reducing the incidence of the diseases Beriberi and Pellagra. Wonder was also the first national bread brand to feature open-dating as well as nutrition information on its packaging.^[1]

It is unclear whether Americans are losing their appetite for sweets and starchs. The Wall Street Journal says Twinkie sales dropped by 2% to 36 million Twinkies being sold. Hostess Brands tried to capitalize on more whole grain breads by launching a "Nature's Pride" line of whole grain breads.

Wonder Bread Vintage Commercial | Video