The Twinkie Returneth.

Note what Hostess is tagging the box with, too:

The company that went bankrupt after an acrimonious fight with its unionized workers last year is back up and running under new owners and a leaner structure. It says it plans to have Twinkies and other snack cakes back on shelves starting July 15.

Based on the outpouring of nostalgia sparked by its demise, Hostess is expecting a blockbuster return next month for Twinkies and other sugary treats, such as CupCakes and Donettes. The company says the cakes will taste the same but that the boxes will now bear the tag line “The Sweetest Comeback In The History Of Ever.”

Which is to say, not “Look for the union label.” I’m pretty sure that my dad the union organizer would have popped a vein at the way that the unions messed this one up (after he was done glaring at me for being publicly amused at their travails*); as a general rule, when the Teamsters are the ones waving the unions off in a labor dispute, it’s a good time to reassess strategy.  As it stands now… some of the employees got their jobs back, only sans union representation – and I suspect that this is just fine with a lot of them. Consolidated facilities, core brands, free publicity… and now Hostess can directly deliver to distributors.  Why is that important?  Ah, here’s why:

…the sticking point was Hostess’s distribution operations, source of the Hostess horror stories filling the media. Union-imposed work rules stopped drivers from helping to load their trucks. A separate worker, arriving at the store in a separate vehicle, had to be employed to shift goods from a storage area to a retailer’s shelf. Wonder Bread and Twinkies couldn’t ride on the same truck.

Hostess has spent eight of the past 11 years in bankruptcy. As the company explained to its latest judge, the Hostess brands “have not been able to profit from many of their existing delivery stops and have been unable to enter potentially profitable markets, such as dollar stores, vending services and movie theaters.”

See also Reason.  The guy at the Wall Street Journal link above was happy to be a contrarian and blame it all on the Teamsters, after all; conventional wisdom, of course, blames the bakers’ unions for Hostess going into bankruptcy.  I will be ecumenical and blame everybody, including the old owners. Of course, after July 15th I will be doing that while eating a Twinkie (not to mention, Ho-Hos, which are the ones that I really missed), so I suppose the whole thing had a happy ending after all.

Via

Breaking news…Twinkies are coming back. Hostess says the sweet treats will return to shelves July 15 http://t.co/QjP4sIfFn6 -KM”

— Carl Bell (@CarlNBCLA) June 23, 2013

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*God rest his soul.