Twinkies And Ding Dongs Are Back (Almost) As Plant In Georgia Prepares To Restart Snack Cake Production After Hostess Bankruptcy

Twinkies and Ding Dongs, the popular snack cakes made by Dallas-based Hostess Brands LLC, which fell into bankruptcy in November and was bought by two private equity firms, will soon start rolling off the assembly line once again at a bakery in Georgia.

According to the Ledger-Enquirer in Columbus, Ga., the local Dolly Madison bakery facility will start making these and other snack products again as early as July, after a test run of equipment and a training period for employees.

“We’ve been engaged in that process for a couple of months,” Hostess Brands LLC spokesman Michael Cramer told the local paper.

The plant has been sitting idle since Hostess shut down operations more than six months ago, which cost 426 jobs at the Columbus plant. Hostess Inc. sold the facility to Apollo Global Management and Metropoulos & Co. for $4.4 million.

The new workforce will be less than half the size of the old one, but the plant will hire up to 300 workers, according to Cramer. The company has been mum about what products will roll out of the facility, but it would be inconceivable that Hostess would not be producing its most popular and widely recognized snacks.

Hostess closed its doors and went into bankruptcy court after conflicting with demands from workers unions over the years, putting over 18,000 people out of work. Hostess LLC previously said it would be reopening plants in Kansas, Indiana and Illinois.