Return of the Twinkie: Cream of crop in US snack market to make sweet comeback

Hostess plans to bring the famed Twinkies cakes back on 15 July (Getty images)

It is being billed as the “sweetest comeback” in history: Twinkies, the cream-filled snack cakes whose manufacturer went bankrupt and ceased production last year, will return to stores across America in July.

After struggling for years, Hostess Brands finally closed its doors following an acrimonious wrangle with striking workers in 2012. A subsequent sale of its assets saw Twinkies and other Hostess cakes wind up under the ownership of an investment firm called Metropoulos & Co and the private-equity giant Apollo Global Management.

Hostess plans to bring the famed Twinkies cakes back on 15 July, with new boxes bearing the motto: “The Sweetest Comeback in the History of Ever.”

News last year that Hostess would cease producing the cakes triggered a run on the snacks, which disappeared off store shelves within hours. Fans went on to set up Facebook pages calling for a return, while a petition was set up on the White House website, calling on President Obama to nationalise “the Twinkie industry and prevent our nation from losing her sweet, creamy centre”.

Since then, “a lot of impostor products have come to the market,” Daren Metropoulos of Metropoulos & Co told the Associated Press. Metropoulos and Apollo paid more than $400m for a portfolio of products that includes Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Ho Hos and Donettes. Rich Seban, the former chief operating officer of Hostess who serves as the new company’s president, said 10 Twinkies will continue to cost $3.99.

The bankruptcy and winding-up of Hostess led to job losses for some 15,000 unionised workers. While some of those workers have been hired back, they are no longer unionised.