The Hostess company, is the successor to one that I think was named Consolidated Bakery, which was at one point the largest bakery in North America.
Starting in the 70's the company was sold several times, and passed through a lot of hands, big conglomerates mostly. And it was managed into the ground. It was merged with some other bakeries, had duplicate facilities, often ran two trucks each half full on many routes and so on.
Eventually they declared bankruptcy to break their unions, came out with massive give backs, and such, then in under a few months went back in again. To again, cut the other unions down.
It's a company that was frittered away. Managed for crap and is now basically dead. The current workforce has struck because they basically saw what happened on the last go round, when concessions were made and then they got stabbed anyhow with a second bankruptcy. So they are going to go down it seems.
The loss of jobs sucks. But Wonder Bread is one of the most useless products out there. Almost null in nutritional value, and stuffed full of things to keep it fresh un-naturally long. Twinkies are not exactly great for one, or a top end snack even. But don't worry that Name will be bought and the product will return to life in new hands. It has value.
Myriads
