Rant #865: Twinkie Fix Coming

For all you lovers of Twinkies, your fix may be coming.

I hear that two new suitors have arisen that are interested in buying up the brands under the old Hostess logo.

National chains Wal-Mart and Kroger have emerged, and they will be vying with such manufacturers as Bimbo and Flower Bakeries for the right to put out Twinkies, Wonder Bread, and the like.

If a chain wins the rights, I wonder how the whole thing works.

They don't have their own bakeries, so they would have to farm out the making of the products to established bakers--maybe Bimbo or Flowers themselves.

Would the products only be sold in these specific stores?

If so, few will be able to get Twinkies in my neck of the woods, because there aren't any Kroger Supermarkets on Long Island.

There are Wal-Mart locations, and plenty of them, so there won't be any problem is that chain wins the rights.

As it stands right now, it appears to be a wide open field for those looking to gain those famous snack names. No one entity is ahead of the others, or so it seems by everything I have read.

In the meantime, I don't know about your own local supermarket, but mine has upped the number of names it carries in the snack aisle.

We now have Tastycake, Freshley's and one or two others that I can't recall right now.

And yes, there are Twinkies ripoffs.

One is made by Freshley's. It think it is called "Dreamies" or something like that.

I bought it recently, but I think my son ate it.

There are others, and they taste just like Twinkies, so the world is not lacking in such cakes right now.

But they aren't Twinkies, at least by the packaging.

Personally, I don't think this bidding war will go on too long.

The iron is hot now, and those bidding--and those owning the assets--know that. They will want to tie this up with a bow really quickly so they can whet the public's appetite for these items.

So, in the new year, I can almost guarantee that you will have your Twinkies.

Who the manufacturer will be, and where you can get these things, is still up in the air, but again, I don't think this situation will last very long at all.

Eat the knockoffs now if you must, but Twinkies are on the way back to your local supermarket.

I can almost taste it.