The fat lady — the one who apparently ate too many 150-calorie, nutrition-free Twinkies — has sung.
But hey, we pretty much warned you in July to start hoarding Twinkies. That’s what it seemed like, as Hostess Brands — the owner of such lunchbox snacks as Ding Dongs and Ho Hos, as well as Wonder Bread and the iconic “Golden Sponge Cake with Creamy Filling” — struggled to emerge from its second bankruptcy in a decade. Now it has happened: Hostess announced early this morning that it would “promptly” liquidate the company immediately and lay off its nearly 19,000 workers.
The trigger was a strike this month by members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union. “We deeply regret the necessity of today’s decision,” Hostess said in a statement, “but we don’t have the financial resources to weather an extended nationwide strike.” Instead, CEO Greg Rayburn said the company — which has about $2 billion in annual revenue and nearly $1 billion in debt — would move forward in bankruptcy court to start “selling its assets to the highest bidders.” Rayburn acknowledged “there’s no way to soften the fact that this will hurt every Hostess Brands employee,” but “unfortunately, because we are in bankruptcy, there are severe limits on the assistance the company can offer you.”