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The Hostess family: Twinkies, Golden Cup Cakes and Zingers. Hostess Brands Inc. will liquidate its business after striking workers with the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union did not come to an agreement with company management.
Next week may be Black Friday but sweets lovers across the nation hung their heads in sorrow on a dark Friday yesterday as Hostess announced they would cease making their line of products, which include the iconic Twinkies brand, because of the Bakers Union Strike.
But now as the brand heads towards liquidating and selling off their assets, a Mexican company may be angling to resurrect the golden Twinkies.
Read the original story at NBC Latino
According to the Christian Science Monitor, while food producers ConAgra and Flowers Food, the American company behind Nature Valley granola, have expressed interest along with Little Debbie baker McKee Foods, Mexico’s Grupo Bimbo may hold the inside track.
Grupo Bimbo is the world’s largest bread-baking firm, which already owns parts of Sara Lee, Entenmann’s and Thomas English Muffins and previously made what was considered a low-ball offer of $580 million a few years ago, Forbes reports. Now Hostess may only be worth $135 million.
Economists say high sugar prices tied to US trade tariffs were a big reason Hostess was struggling, but a Mexican company could be a lifeline for Twinkies because it would be able to take advantage of access to lower-priced sugar in Mexico.
While Hostess was clearly struggling, analysts believed Grupo Bimbo had an eye on them since the early 2000s because they saw Hostess as a key ingredient for North American expansion with delivery routes that penetrated across the country into convenience stores, gas stations and grocery markets, according to Forbes.
Daniel Servitje Montull runs Grupo Bimbo, which was founded by his family in 1954. His family is worth $4 billion.
Servitje Montull, has already worked magic before, taking on Mexico’s tortilla market and positioning white bread in Latin America.
If Grupo Bimbo pulls off a deal with Hostess for Twinkies, his next challenge will be resurrecting an American favorite.
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Leave a Comment:
setter it may go past 10 when its all done
Since it was the bakery union that cost 18,000 workers their jobs ,maybe they should hire those out of work employees, or give them benefits.
Been a union man 43 years of my life. Sorry about it in the last 25.
Unions are no longer out for the worker but for themselves.
WAKE UP PEOPLE.
thank you obama for destroying this country in 4 years this great country has been ruined and 4 more years this usa will be just like the roman empire why not bail out hostess like you did with gm and chrystler oh i know why you wont because the union didnt give you millions or billions of dollers to your campain fund / distroy america. another sad day for america!!!!
I agree completely!!!! If the government can give billions of dollars to thieving Wall Street Banks to pay their CEO millions of dollars for their annual bonus then they can bail out Hostess!!! And I sure as Hell don't Mexico buying Hostess!!! We need to stop America from being sold to every radical nation that Obama can sell us to!!!
Canada could become a haven for Twinkie lovers!
My comments on the first thread have been (it says) "collapsed by the community." But they contained no vulgrities at all. So does anybody know what this means? I want to collapse a few that I disagree with too I think. Thanks.
setter it may go past 10
clarence24 obama supporter didnt like what u said
Actually I talked about the blood sucking Republican millionaires. So maybe it was one of the right wing Obama-hating fanatics? Does it take more than one vote to collapse a comment? Where do I vote? I have it in for a lot of the right wing Obama-hating fanatics on here.
Was this a plot? I think so. Another US company leaving for bigger profits, and we are OK with it. We have to be, while government tells us to be independent of government and depend more on our selves to live and make a living. The big boys, with all their double standards move their operations a cross the border or over seas, and make us wait as American for their shipments to come back in to the country. We are supposed to be OK with this. I say we should not be. There should be sanctions against companies that put Americans out of work. They should not be allowed to ship back into the country for at least 7 years. That way another American can rise up and replenish the goods and jobs.
Seriously -- what else should we wait for? We wait on shipments of toilet paper (seriously), clothing, furniture (now more then ever), and when the powers that be deem it necessary to stop farmers growing foods so foreign producers can ship back into the country, that's a problem. What a joke, be be independent, how, when, when the powers that be move even customer service across the border. I guess we can't even answer the phones for pennies on the dollar. Sorry, we have to eat, sleep and be fatter while waiting on shipments to come in. Back to Hostess and the UNION - this is very disheartening, you both should be about keeping Americans working and not on who's on top. Seriously, get real - I guess no more treats for you/me and the rest of us.
Exporting back - the company has gone bankrupt, you cant dictate what a dead company will or wont do - consumers doesn't want to pay the higher price for there products to offset the costs of sugar and unionized union labor. So this dead company will now be bought and resurrected by a foreign owner who will move the jobs to Mexicowith cheap non-Union labor and cheap sugar. Yet you the consumer will benefit because you will have a cheap Twinkies, you the consumer has decided this not the company - remember lotsof shareholders are losing their investments along with pension funds who have invested in this company.
After CEOs came and went through the Hostess revolving door, each one collecting their golden parachutes, the bankrupt company was finally closed by the Republican Romney-loving blood suckers who owned it. The working man and their struugling Union which tried to speak for them were destroyed while the blood sucking Republicans made millions.
Now a Mexican bimbo is in charge. And you can bet the workers that the bimbo employs will work for slave wages. I wish that federal charges could be brought against the owners of Hostess.
What a bunch of freaking crybaby losers !!! every republican is wha wha wha just like the weeper of the house !!!
Your lost at the past elections has nothing to do with the ol might twinky IDIOTS!!! OMG what !!!!!This is why you lost the elections you all are a bunch cry baby's !!! and poor little LOSER'S WHA WHA WHA Thank GOD you are not running this country !!! GET A LIFE !! BOO HOO
too bad im not a republician but in 4 more years you wont have a country so who is a idiot!!!
After they basicly threw us out of the plant ,then told us no money for vacations or healthcare till the end of the month .Now i hear there giving out more bonuses to the execs or thieves as i call them.Im done with the bakery thing but BIMBO is a quality company what the helll fiat owns chrysler so whats the big deal.With proper management whats left of this rag tag outfit could be a goldmine.Hostess was looted from the top by crooks in white shirts.I know bimbo is a well run company with quality management.
greed of the unions is what pushed hostess out and obama supporters
Clueless
Actually, if you like Twinkies, you're OK anyway. I bought a big box of them in the grocery store the other day, based on the picture on the package. And it turned out that they weren't Hostess Twinkies at all. Don't remember the brand right now, but they looked and tasted just like Twinkies. I go through a half dozen a day.
I really hate to see iconic American built companies go broke. But I remember getting a pack of Twinkies for 25 cents when I was growing up in the 60's and 70's. Now go to a store and you'll see them for $1.19 and up. They've priced themselves out of business with so many other brands like Great Value,Little Debbie and store brands out there.
Be it due to todays wages,unions or corporations wanting to make more than the previous year. Its just a shame to see American companies go broke after being around for so long. I remember those old Twinkie commercials and loved them.
I recently bought an "off brand" thing that looked and tasted like Twinkies. But I don't remember the brand. Does Little Debbie make a Twinkie look-a-like?
Almost no one is alive who remembers what Twinkies tasted like before World War II, when they were made with banana cream filling. Shortage of banana shipments during the war caused the company to switch to the vanilla filling which has been used ever since.
Banana cream is a delicious filling, and I'm sure that the original Twinkies were really great. But after the war, the blood sucking Republicans who owned the company refused to return to the slightly more expensive banana cream filling. They pocketed millions as they robbed Americans of the original Twinkie.
So not only are those mean old Republicks coming for your Social Security, and your Medicare, they stole the original Twinkee recipe, now did they? Clarence24 it is time for your morning medication and today we are going to take you out for a nice long walk. Then later you can help put a puzzle together with the rest of the inmates and staff.
jim prices go up because of union greed
one good thing 18000 plus wont have to pay dues
clarence24 come out of the past obama is letting all these jobs & company go
Too bad, I'll bet those union workers who were on strike wished they caved in a little on this deal. Ask your union leaders and stewards if they will pay your wages now that they coaxed you into a strike,.....You guys who struck this company, have no fear....there are plenty of minimum wage jobs just waiting for you.....lol
The working man just needs a living wage. But all the money goes to the Republican fat cats at the top.
But the average Republican consumers are implicit in this. They say they are concerned with all the jobs going offshore, but when they buy a product they always want to pay the cheapest price. And those goods are made by slave labor in a foreign plant. Only Democrats support the hard working Americans.
I know a former Hostess worker, and man the union killed the place, sounds kind of the same old same old. He paid nothing in health benefits for himself, wife and two childern. Made good money for having only a high school degree and had a phat pension waiting for him at the finish line. But a wise man once said the the virus will kill the host rather than take a little less. And unions are prime examples of this, remember the Chicago teachers striking in a city that is broke, and the wild and crazy bunch in Ws rioting and destroying the capital all over a few buck. So the Twinkee boys and girls would not take a few dollar less, now they have nothing left, what a bunch!
Bimbo & Twinkies. Great fodder for late night TV hosts and comics. Stewart and Colbert will have a field day.
army1971 i lke that
It's not greed when the working man just wants a living wage. Even the odious George W. Bush talked about the need to put food on your family.
Twinkies wont be made in the USA. Globalization continues and comparative advantage of globalization sets the stage. If labor costs and high sugar prices in the USA killed making it here then it should move to Mexico. The consumer continues to get what they want ,the best for the cheapest. That is truly globalization. If the product would be made here it would cost 20-30% higher and then eventually the consumer would kill off the product because they won't buy it. At the end of the day the consumer decision making decides where products are made. If you want high priced products made in the USA then open your wallet but if you want the best for the cheapest then you will buy it from the low cost globalized locations.
If Bimbo buys Hostess the Twinkies will be continued to be produced in the US by American workers. They will have their jobs making the treat and the acquiring company will have all those assets, the commercial routes, and the brandname that the union and the owners are so tired of. I am guessing none of the old workers will be called back as their bitterness can sour the new Twinkies.
It is a gamble the new company is making, my hope is that they make their buck back, that many Americans get gainfull employement at their factories, and that there is a Twinkie on the shelves for those of you with a sweet tooth...or with a bad case of the munchies.