Flowers Foods announced late last week that is would pay $390 million to purchase several popular Hostess brands, including Wonder, Butternut, Home Pride, Merita and Nature’s Pride. The company will also acquire 20 bakeries and 38 depots from Hostess. Hostess CEO Gregory Rayburn is still in talks to sell its Twinkies and Drake’s cakes brands with other potential buyers.
Flowers—which currently owns Cobblestone Mill, Nature’s Own and Tastykake brands—said it expects the acquisition to add to its earnings this year. The company beat out one other bidder for the Hostess brands—Grupo Bimbo SAB de CV. Mexico-based Grupo owns U.S. brands such as Entenmann’s, Sara Lee and Thomas’.
In November, Hostess filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and later that month received court permission to liquidate.
Read more about Flowers purchase of some Hostess brands on Thomson Reuters.
And continue to follow Hostess’s downward spiral on InsideCounsel:
Hostess union requests Chapter 11 trustee supervise liquidation
Court grants Hostess permission to liquidate
Hostess announces liquidation, the end of Twinkies
Hostess will seek to liquidate if striking workers don’t return to their jobs
Hostess imposes wage-cutting contract on workers to avoid going under
Hostess given permission to reject some union contracts
Number of “Chapter 22” filings jumps
Hostess files for bankruptcy … again
