newjerseynewsroom.com

BY BOB HOLT

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

The Twinkie has been around since 1930. By the time Twinkie inventor James Dewar died in 1985, over a billion of the sugary snacks were being sold every year

Now Hostess Brands Inc., who makes Twinkies, Wonder Bread, and an assortment of snack cakes, are filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time.

The company said in a statement, according to the Wall Street Journal, that its current cost structure is no longer competitive due to pension and medical benefit debts and restrictive work rules.

The Washington Post reported that Hostess initially filed for bankruptcy in 2004 when they were known as Interstate Bakeries. According to sunsentinel.com, Ripplewood Holdings LLC took control of the company, and they came back in February 2009.

Hostess offering of snack cakes include Hostess CupCakes, Ding Dongs, Drake's Devil Dogs, and Nature's Pride breads. People often call Twinkies junk food, but Dewar always believed otherwise.

“I fed them to my four kids, and they feed them to my 15 grandchildren," Dewar said in 1980, according to the New York Daily News.

Back in 1972, Dan White tried a “Twinkie defense” to plead innocence during his trial for the murders of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and city supervisor Harvey Milk. White unsuccessfully claimed that eating too many sugary, fatty snack foods like Twinkies had impaired his mental faculties.

Hostess employs about 19,000 people around the U.S. The company expects to maintain routine operations because of $75 million in financing from lenders.