Hostess Bankruptcy: Flowers Foods Has Chance To Save Twinkies, Snack Company

While news of two young Sarasota investors created a media frenzy about their court filing to save Twinkies this week, a big-name baker with a southern Manatee County location is reportedly in the mix.

Thomasville, Georgia-based Flowers Foods Inc., is going through lending renogations to set itself up for a bid to buy the Hostess and Twinkies brands, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Flowers Foods maintains a bakery plant plus a store off of U.S. 301 at 63rd Avenue — not too far away from the Merita Discount Bakery Store that serves as a Hostess/Wonder bread outlet on Tallevast Road. Hostess CEO Gregory Rayburn appeared on CNBC Wednesday afternoon announcing Hostess would start laying off employees today.

Flowers Foods brands include Tastykake, Nature's Own, Sunbeam, Blue Bird, among others.

Stock of Flowers Foods is trading around $23 per share now, and gained a 20 percent increase earlier this month among the chatter that Hostess—the only other publicly traded snack food baker—is going under.

Earlier this week, an investment group called Hurst Capital filed its interest to buy Hostess' brands, though the 26-year-old twins who run the firm admitted that they don't have "consumer brand experience," need more capital, and it would be the biggest transaction they ever handled, The Herald-Tribune reported.

Hostess lawyers said during its Chapter 11 court proceedings Wednesday that it received a "flood" of offers since the bankruptcy was announced, and that the company's assets might be sold or tested at auction in the coming weeks, meaning that another company could take over the cupcakes, Twinkies and Ding Dogs, The Wall Street Journal reported.

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