Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Food (bakery) |
Founded | 1930 |
Defunct | November 21, 2012 |
Fate | Chapter 7 bankruptcy |
Successor | Hostess Brands |
Headquarters | Irving, Texas, United States |
Key people | Gregory F. Rayburn, CEO |
Products | Brands such as Wonder Bread (US only), Hostess, Nature's Pride, Merita Breads, Home Pride, and Dolly Madison |
Revenue | $2.8 billion (2008) [1] |
$144 million (2008) | |
Total equity | $462 million (2008) |
Old HB, Inc., [2] known as Hostess Brands from 2009 to 2013 and established in 1930 as Interstate Bakeries Corporation, was a wholesale baker and distributor of bakery products in the United States. [3] Before its 2012 closure and liquidation, it owned the Hostess, Wonder Bread, Nature's Pride, Dolly Madison, Butternut Breads, and Drake's brands.
For many years the company was called Interstate Bakeries and based at 12 East Armour Boulevard, Kansas City, Missouri. In 2009, after it emerged from a 2004 bankruptcy, its name was changed to Hostess Brands and its headquarters moved to Irving, Texas. [4] Hostess Brands sought bankruptcy protection again in January 2012. [5]
On November 16, 2012, the company filed a motion in United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York in White Plains to close its business and sell its assets. On November 21, the motion was accepted [6] and a judge agreed to sell the Hostess brands. [7] [8] The Hostess and Dolly Madison brands are now produced by Hostess Brands, which was acquired by The J.M. Smucker Company in 2023. [9]
The company has its roots in Nafziger Bakeries, founded by Ralph Leroy Nafziger in a church basement at 6th and Prospect Avenue in Kansas City in 1905. Nafziger expanded the bakeries and bought out competitors. In 1925 he sold Nafziger to Purity Bakeries [10] (which became American Bakeries) and acquired a controlling interest in Schulze Baking Company and its Butternut Breads brand. [11]
In 1930 Nafziger announced the formation of the Interstate Bakeries Corporation (IBC) with the merger of Schulze Bakery and the seven bakers of Western Bakeries of Los Angeles to become the fifth largest baker in the United States. [12] [13] The company sold Butternut bread, wrapped in gingham, to grocery stores. [11]
Schulze and Western continued to operate separately under the Interstate umbrella until 1937, when they merged with Interstate Bakeries. [14] [15] In 1943 Interstate acquired the Supreme Baking Company of Los Angeles, and in 1950 it bought the O'Rourke Baking Company of Buffalo, New York.
Acquisitions during the 1950s and early 1960s included the Ambrosia, Remar, Butter Cream, Campbell-Sell and Schall Tasty baking companies, the Kingston Cake and Cobb's Sunlit bakeries, Sweetheart Bread Company and Hart's Bakeries. [15] In the late 1960s IBC acquired Millbrook Bread, Shawano Farms and the Baker and Shawano canning companies. [15] In 1969 IBC changed its name to Interstate Brands, with its signature brands Butternut and Blue Seal breads and Dolly Madison cakes; Butternut Breads had been in business since 1902. [15]
In 1975 Interstate was acquired by the Data Processing Financial and General Corporation (DPF), a computer-leasing company that had encountered difficulties during the IBM antitrust battles which changed the pricing of IBM hardware. To change its business model, DPF used its cash to buy a low-tech company. The merged company, headquartered in Hartsdale, New York, kept the DPF acronym while continuing to divest its remaining technology assets. Investing heavily in its plants, it acquired the Silver Loaf Baking Company, Eddy Bakeries and Mrs. Cubbison's Foods. [15]
In 1981 DPF completed the sale of its remaining computer systems and changed the company name back to the original Interstate Bakeries, moving its headquarters back to Kansas City. [15] In 1986 Interstate acquired Purity Baking Company and Stewart Sandwiches, followed in 1987 by Landshire Food Products. [15] The following year Interstate became a privately held company, and its name changed to IBC Holdings. IBC bought the Merita-Cotton's Bakeries division of the American Bakeries Company. [15] In 1991, IBC again became a public company and changed its name back to Interstate Bakeries. [15]
In January 1995, Interstate acquired the Continental Baking Company from Ralston Purina for $330 million and 16.9 million shares of Interstate stock. Continental had acquired Taggart Bakeries of Indianapolis in 1925, [16] and the deal brought Taggart's creations (including Wonder Bread and the Hostess brand) to Interstate. Taggart had created Hostess in 1921, and the brand focused on cakes like Twinkies, CupCakes, Ding Dongs and Ho Hos (created during Continental's ownership). [17] At this time, the merged company also bought the San Francisco French Bread Company, John J. Nissen Baking Company, Drake's and My Bread Company. [15]
With the merger, Interstate held two national bread divisions: Butternut and Wonder Bread. The divisions had different cultures: Butternut was unregimented, with each bakery a self-contained profit center, and Wonder Bread was structured; this caused early problems. In both divisions, snack cakes were more profitable due to economy of scale and logistics. When extended-shelf-life enzymes were developed for bread, it was hoped to convert small, less-efficient bakeries into a network of large bakeries like their snack-cakes operations. The new enzymes gave the bread a different taste and texture, [18] and market forces reduced prices and sales.
On September 22, 2004, Interstate Bakeries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. [19] The company named a new chief executive, Tony Alvarez. Interstate Bakery's stock, which had been $34 per share, fell to $2.05 with the bankruptcy. During the bankruptcy proceedings (at the time, the longest-running in U.S. history), Interstate fought a 2007 bid from Mexican baker Grupo Bimbo and Ron Burkle of the Yucaipa Companies. [20]
Under Craig Jung, Interstate Bakeries emerged from bankruptcy as a private company on February 3, 2009. [21] The plan included a 50-percent equity stake by Ripplewood Holdings and credit lines from General Electric Capital and GE Capital Markets, Silver Point Finance and Monarch Master Funding. Interstate's unionized workers made contract concessions in exchange for equity in the company. [22]
During the 2004–2009 bankruptcy period Interstate closed nine of its 54 bakeries and more than 300 outlet stores, and its workforce declined from 32,000 to 22,000. The company dropped regional brands and operating agreements, such as an agreement to produce Sunbeam Bread for the northeastern U.S. [22]
On November 2, 2009, IBC became Hostess Brands, named for its Twinkies-and-cupcakes cake division. Hostess Brands continued its bread lines, including Wonder Bread. [23] The company's subsidiaries, such as Interstate Brands Corporation and IBC Sales Corporation, continued displaying their name and logo on Hostess Brands products.
In December 2011, it was reported that Hostess Brands was on the verge of filing for bankruptcy a second time. The company stopped paying future pension benefits after August, breaking its union contracts. [24] According to a Hostess employee, "We understand that, should we pursue some form of legal action to require the company to live up to the terms of the contract, they may close, but we have come to believe that they will close anyway. We believe the company is poorly managed and the only hope is a complete change in management". [24]
On January 10, 2012, Hostess Brands filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time. In its filing, the company said it "is not competitive, primarily due to legacy pension and medical benefit obligations and restrictive work rules". According to Hostess, it employed 19,000 people and was more than $860 million in debt. The company said it would continue to operate with $75 million of debtor-in-possession financing from Monarch Alternative Capital, Silver Point Capital and other investors. [5]
In March Brian Driscoll resigned as CEO [25] and was replaced by Gregory F. Rayburn, who had been hired as chief restructuring officer nine days earlier. Fortune reported that unions in the company were unhappy with Driscoll's proposed compensation package of $1.5 million, plus cash incentives and $1.95 million in long-term compensation. The court had discovered that Hostess executives received raises of up to 80 percent the previous year. Rayburn cut the salaries of the four top Hostess executives to $1, to be restored by January 1 of the following year or earlier. [26]
In July 2012, the New York Post reported that negotiations with the Teamsters Union, led by Silver Point Capital, were close to an agreement allowing Hostess Brands to cut employee pay and benefits if the company continued funding its pension plans. [27] In May, as required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, the company's 19,000 workers were warned of a possible layoff. In an email to the Marysville, California Appeal-Democrat , Hostess spokesman Erik Halvorson wrote that the May notices were to alert employees to a possible sale of the company but "our goal is still to emerge from bankruptcy as a growing company with a strong future". [28] Although the layoff notices listed July 7–21 as dates, on July 5 another company spokesman told the Financial News & Daily Record that there were no immediate plans to lay off Hostess employees. [29]
In November 2012, Hostess employees nationwide went on strike. The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM), representing 6,600 Hostess employees, took action after a contract proposal from Hostess Brands was rejected by 92 percent of its members. [30]
On November 16, Hostess announced that it was ceasing its plant operations and laying off most of its 18,500 employees. The company said that it intended to sell off its assets (including its well-known brand names) and liquidate. [31] [32] According to CEO Gregory Rayburn, "Hostess Brands will move promptly to lay off most of its 18,500-member workforce and focus on selling its assets to the highest bidders." [33] [34] A BCTGM press release issued that day read in part, "When a highly-respected financial consultant, hired by Hostess, determined earlier this year that the company's business plan to exit bankruptcy was guaranteed to fail because it left the company with unsustainable debt levels, our members knew that the massive wage and benefit concessions the company was demanding would go straight to Wall Street investors and not back into the company." [35]
According to Rayburn, potential buyers expressed interest in acquiring the Hostess brand. [36] On November 21, Judge Robert Drain cleared Hostess to close. [6] In approving the plan, Drain ruled against U.S. Trustee for the Southern District Tracy Hope Davis' motion to convert the bankruptcy to a Chapter 7 bankruptcy with an appointed trustee to oversee liquidation. Davis criticized the plan's provisions, which would "'grant bonuses to insiders' and 'cherry-pick' which administrative claims get paid". [37] Drain left Rayburn in charge of the liquidation; Hostess had argued that its assets would devalue if the company had to wait for a trustee to get up to speed on the company. [38] Hostess Brands' liquidation plan was finalized by a federal bankruptcy judge on November 29. [39] In January 2013, the company asked a judge to set a March 21 deadline for workers to file back-pay claims. [40] On February 11, a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge in New York approved stalking horse bidders for Hostess Brands. [41] [42] [43] [44]
The company received bids for assets from Walmart, Target, Kroger, Flowers Foods and Grupo Bimbo, [45] [46] [47] [48] and was expected to sell its snack-cake and bread brands during 2013. [49] [50] [51] [52] On January 8, 2013, Hostess Brands hired Hilco to sell its equipment, machinery and real estate. [53] Three days later the company announced a $390 million stalking-horse bid by Flowers Foods for six of its bread brands (including Wonder Bread), [54] and court approval was received for a February 28 auction of the brands. [55]
On January 15, 2013, Hostess Brands began searching for a stalking-horse bidder for its snack cakes; [56] four companies (Grupo Bimbo, a partnership of Apollo Global Management and C. Dean Metropoulos and Company, Hurst Capital and McKee Foods) were negotiating. [57] [58] [59] Two weeks later the company picked Apollo Global Management and C. Dean Metropoulos and Company as lead bidder for its snack cakes, [60] [61] [62] [63] with the bid deadlines for all Hostess brands March 11 and 12. [64]
It was announced on January 28, 2013 that United States Bakery was the leading bidder for Hostess' Sweetheart, Eddy's, Standish Farms and Grandma Emilie's brands and McKee Foods was the leading bidder for its Drake's brand, which included Ring Dings, Yodels and Drake's Devil Dogs. [65] [66] On March 11 Apollo Global Management made the sole bid ($410 million) for the company's snack business, which included Twinkies; this company later went public under the name Hostess Brands and trade on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker TWNK. [67] On 11 September 2023, The J.M. Smucker Company announced it would buy Hostess for $5.6 billion in a cash and stock deal.
On June 6, 2013, the new Hostess Brands reopened the Emporia, Kansas plant. [68] Hostess announced ten days later that production would resume the following month, and on June 23 said that its brands would be back on store shelves on July 15. [69] [70] although the company would sell fewer products than before, new president Rich Seban said that it might produce innovative pastries and snacks. "We can have some fun with that mixture," Seban said, suggesting that Hostess might experiment with gluten-free, higher-fiber and lower-sugar and -sodium products. [71]
In January 2013, a joint venture by Apollo Global Management and C. Dean Metropoulos and Company became the leading bidder to purchase Dolly Madison and the Hostess brand of snacks. [60] Silver Point Capital, Grupo Bimbo and Hurst Capital also placed bids for both brands. [57] [58] [61] [72] On March 12, Apollo and Metropoulos won the bid to buy the brands from Hostess for $410 million. [73] The deal was approved by a bankruptcy court, and C. Dean Metropoulos and Company principal Daren Metropoulos announced that Hostess products would be sold again on July 15. [74]
This division eventually went public as the second incarnation of Hostess Brands, and announced it would be acquired by J.M. Smucker on September 11, 2023. [9]
Bimbo Bakeries USA outbid Flowers Foods for the rights to Beefsteak on February 28, 2013, [75] [76] and the deal was approved by a bankruptcy court on March 20. [77] In August, the trademarks of J. J. Nissen and the web domain jjnissenbreads.com were transferred to Bimbo Bakeries, [78] which later purchased other regional Hostess bread brands: Colombo, Cotton's, Emperor Norton, Fisherman's Wharf, Parisian and Toscana.
In January 2013 it was announced that Flowers Foods had offered to buy six of Hostess' bread brands, including Wonder Bread. The deal, initially structured at $360 million, involved 20 bakeries and 38 depots. [79] Flowers Foods won the bid to purchase five of the six bread brands (except Beefsteak, purchased by Grupo Bimbo) on February 28. [75] The deal went through a bankruptcy court in March and was completed on July 22, 2013. [80] [81] The five brands are Butternut Bread, Home Pride, Merita Breads, Nature's Pride and Wonder Bread. [54]
The rights to the following Hostess brands were sold to Lewis Brothers Bakeries in December 2013: [82]
McKee Foods, owner of Hostess competitor Little Debbie, purchased the Drake's snack cakes on March 14, 2013 for $27.5 million. [66] [83] After the deal passed a bankruptcy court, McKee began selling the snacks on September 23. [84]
United States Bakery won the auction for four northwestern Hostess bakeries on March 15, 2013 for a reported $30.85 million, [65] [85] and the deal was approved by a bankruptcy court that month. The brands were Eddy's, Grandma Emile's, Standish Farms and Sweetheart Bakery. [65] As of December 2015 [update] , the rights to the Baker's Inn and Dutch Hearth brands remain unsold. [86] [87]
Dolly Madison is an American bakery brand owned by Hostess Brands, selling packaged baked snack foods. It is best known for its long marketing association with the Peanuts animated TV specials.
The Twinkie is an American snack cake, described as "golden sponge cake with a creamy filling". It was formerly made and distributed by Hostess Brands. The brand is currently owned by Hostess Brands, Inc., itself currently owned by The J.M. Smucker Company and having been formerly owned by private equity firms Apollo Global Management and C. Dean Metropoulos and Company as the second incarnation of Hostess Brands. During bankruptcy proceedings, Twinkie production was suspended on November 15, 2012, and resumed after an absence of a few months from American store shelves, becoming available again nationwide on July 15, 2013.
Drake's is a brand of American baked goods. The company was founded by Newman E. Drake in 1896 in Harlem, New York, as The N.E. Drake Baking Company, but it is now owned by McKee Foods. The company makes snack cake products such as Devil Dogs, Funny Bones, Coffee Cakes, Ring Dings, and Yodels. Drake's has traditionally been marketed primarily in the Northeastern U.S., but it expanded to the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern U.S. regions in 2016. The products are made under the Orthodox Union kosher certification guidelines.
Wonder Bread is an American brand of sliced bread. Established in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1921, it was one of the first companies to sell sliced bread nationwide by 1930. The brand is currently owned by Flowers Foods in the United States.
McKee Foods Corporation is a privately held and family-owned American snack food and granola manufacturer headquartered in Collegedale, Tennessee. The corporation is the maker of Drake's Cakes, Fieldstone Bakery snacks and cereal, Little Debbie snacks, and Sunbelt Bakery granola and cereal. The company also formerly operated Heartland Brands.
A Ding Dong is a chocolate cake produced and distributed in the United States by Hostess Brands and in Canada from Vachon Inc. under the name King Dons; in some U.S. markets, it was previously known as Big Wheels. With the exception of a brief period in 2013, the Ding Dong has been produced continuously since 1967. It is round with a flat top and bottom, close to three inches in diameter and slightly taller than an inch, similar in shape and size to a hockey puck. A white creamy filling is injected into the center and a thin coating of chocolate glaze covers the cake. The Ding Dong was originally wrapped in a square of thin aluminum foil, enabling it to be carried in lunches without melting the chocolate glaze.
Entenmann's is an American company that manufactures baked goods and delivers them throughout the United States to supermarkets and other retailers for public sales. Often, they are known to have display cases at the end of store aisles. The company offers dessert, cup, loaf, and crumb cakes, and donuts, cookies, pies, cereal bars, muffins, Danish pastries, and among other baked goods, buns. In the past several years, they have added designer coffee flavors along with scented candles to their product line in an effort to broaden its appeal.
Ho Hos are small, cylindrical, frosted, cream-filled chocolate snack cakes with a pinwheel design based on the Swiss roll. Made by Hostess Brands, they are similar to Yodels by Drake's and Swiss Cake Rolls by Little Debbie.
Newman E. Drake was an American entrepreneur and philanthropist who founded Drake's, an American baking company now owned by McKee Foods.
Snack cakes are a type of baked dessert confectionery made with cake, sugar, and icing.
Vachon Bakery is a Canadian maker of popular snack pastries. The company was part of Saputo Inc. from 1999 to 2015. It has been owned by Canada Bread, part of Grupo Bimbo since 2015.
Flowers Foods, headquartered in Thomasville, Georgia, is a producer and marketer of packed bakery food. The company operates 47 bakeries producing bread, buns, rolls, snack cakes, pastries, and tortillas. Flowers Foods' products are sold regionally through a direct store delivery network that encompasses the East, South, Southwest, West, and the Northwest regions of the United States and are delivered nationwide to retailer's warehouses. It has made acquisitions of a number of bakeries and other food companies over the years, continuing through to the present day. As of February 2013, it had grown to be the "second-largest baking company in the United States".
Schulze Baking Company Plant is a factory building located on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is located at 40 East Garfield Boulevard in the Washington Park community area in Cook County. Built in 1914, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 12, 1982. Originally built for the Schulze Baking Company, it was the home of the Hostess Brands' Butternut Bread until 2004.
Bimbo Bakeries USA, Inc. is the American corporate arm of the Mexican multinational bakery product manufacturing company Grupo Bimbo. It is the largest bakery company in the United States. The subsidiary, headquartered in Horsham, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, owns many fresh bread and sweet baked goods brands in the United States, including Arnold, Levy's, Ball Park, Columbo, Francisco, Oroweat, Entenmann's, Sara Lee, and Thomas'. It is also a top advertising sponsor for many major soccer teams around the globe.
Merita is a brand of breads that was produced by Hostess Brands and now produced by Flowers Foods, available throughout the Southeastern United States until November 16, 2012, when Hostess's management decided to liquidate Hostess. The company gave as their reason for this action that they had been crippled by a strike by BCTGM, the bakers' union. Union spokespersons attributed the company's situation to poor management over a long period of years.
The Continental Baking Company was one of the first bakeries to introduce fortified bread. It was the maker of the Twinkie and Wonder Bread. Through a series of acquisitions and mergers it became part of the former Hostess Brands company.
Hostess CupCake is an American brand of snack cake produced and distributed by Hostess Brands and currently owned by The J.M. Smucker Company. Its most common form is a chocolate cupcake with chocolate icing and vanilla creme filling, with seven distinctive white squiggles across the top. However, other flavors have been available at times. It has been claimed to be the first commercially produced cupcake and has become an iconic American brand.
Colombo Baking Company was a bakery founded in 1896, known for its sourdough bread. Located at 580 Julie Ann Way in Oakland, California, it became a wholly owned division of Hostess Brands. Colombo sourdough rolls were manufactured at a satellite bakery in Sacramento, California. Along with Toscana bakery of Oakland and Parisian bakery of San Francisco, Colombo became part of the San Francisco French Bread Company (SFFBC) which was acquired by Hostess in 1994. The brands competed locally in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a result of Hostess liquidating the company, Colombo shuttered its operation in November, 2012. The SFFBC, through Colombo's bakery, was the maker of Emperor Norton San Francisco Sourdough Snacks, which ceased production in 2012, prior to the Hostess liquidation.
Hostess Brands Inc. is an American bakery company formed in 2013. Its main operating subsidiaries are Hostess Brands, LLC, and Voortman Cookies Limited.
Hostess Cake, mostly known simply as Hostess, is a brand under which snack cakes are sold by Hostess Brands. The brand originated in 1919 when the first Hostess CupCake was sold. However, it is better-known as the brand under which Twinkies are sold, after that product appeared in 1930.
Cuts for Hostess workers
We are simply fulfilling our requirements by sending these notices.
The goal is to restructure Hostess and come out of Chapter 11 as a stronger company.