How Hostess Was Saved From Bankruptcy

In 2012, well-known snack brand Hostess filed for bankruptcy and liquidation amidst a labor strike. The bankruptcy was meant to be the end of the company and Hostess snacks, but with what could be considered a series of fortunate events, the brand was saved from doom. It turns out that the general public actually loved Hostess, and in the months following the bankruptcy news, Hostess snacks were flying off the shelves at a rate that the company had probably hoped for many years.

As such, Hostess was bought and sold by a few different owners before the company was eventually sold to Gores Holdings by Apollo Global Management and Metropoulos & Co. for $375 million. Gores Holdings would change its name to Hostess Brands, and Gores Group CEO Alec Gores and Hostess owner C. Dean Metropoulos invested another $350 million to bring the brand back to life. 

The future of Hostess and the beloved Twinkie started to look ... okay. As Hostess worked to rebuild the company and get Twinkies back on the shelves, it invested more in its employees and bakeries, even though it had to close all but three bakeries. Thanks to the few companies that believed Hostess was worth saving and the consumers who didn't want their favorite snacks to disappear from shelves, the iconic snack brand resurrected, and the beloved Twinkie got to live another day.

Despite the loss of over 18,000 jobs due to the bankruptcy, many news outlets and consumers focused their concern on the possible loss of the Twinkie, a 2012 plight named Twinkiegeddon. Perhaps it's because the 2012 bankruptcy was to be the final nail in the coffin for the company, which had first filed for bankruptcy in 2004, claiming that the change in food trends and decreased popularity of junk food were to blame. In 2009, Hostess tried to make a comeback by releasing new products, including the Kazbar and low-calorie Twinkie options. Alas, the sweet treat giant still struggled, leading to the Twinkiegeddon.

The possibility of saying goodbye to Twinkies forever led consumers to buy Twinkies, Ding Dongs, and other treats en masse. Savvy shoppers realized that Twinkies were worth way more than they thought and sold these snacks on the internet for prices in the thousands. Whether a person consumed one Twinkie per day like it was a form of self-care or hadn't tasted one in years, the snack started stockpiling in people's homes like Twinkies were the only food that would last forever in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. Unfortunately, Twinkies are only good for about 25 days (if you have a stockpile, you might want to take care of that). For shoppers who couldn't find a box left over in their local grocery stores and couldn't afford or fathom purchasing Twinkies for thousands of dollars, patience was a virtue as Hostess snacks eventually filled the shelves once more.