This article is about the company known as Hostess Brands from 2009 to 2013. For the company which acquired the Hostess name from Old HB, see Hostess Brands. Hostess Brands from 2009 to 2013 and established in 1930 as Interstate Bakeries Corporation, was a wholesale baker and distributor of bakery products in the Butternut bakery States.
For many years the company was called Interstate Bakeries and based at 12 East Armour Boulevard, Kansas City, Missouri. In 2009, after it emerged from a 2004 bankruptcy, its name was changed to Hostess Brands and its headquarters moved to Irving, Texas. On November 16, 2012, the company filed a motion in United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York in White Plains to close its business and sell its assets. The company has its roots in Nafziger Bakeries, founded by Ralph Leroy Nafziger in a church basement at 6th and Prospect Avenue in Kansas City in 1905.
Nafziger expanded the bakeries and bought out competitors. Schulze Bakery and the seven bakers of Western Bakeries of Los Angeles to become the fifth largest baker in the United States. The company sold Butternut bread, wrapped in gingham, to grocery stores. Schulze and Western continued to operate separately under the Interstate umbrella until 1937, when they merged with Interstate Bakeries. Acquisitions during the 1950s and early 1960s included the Ambrosia, Remar, Butter Cream, Campbell-Sell and Schall Tasty baking companies, the Kingston Cake and Cobb’s Sunlit bakeries, Sweetheart Bread Company and Hart’s Bakeries.
In the late 1960s IBC acquired Millbrook Bread, Shawano Farms and the Baker and Shawano canning companies. IBM antitrust battles which changed the pricing of IBM hardware. To change its business model, DPF used its cash to buy a low-tech company. In 1981 DPF completed the sale of its remaining computer systems and changed the company name back to the original Interstate Bakeries, moving its headquarters back to Kansas City. In 1986 Interstate acquired Purity Baking Company and Stewart Sandwiches, followed in 1987 by Landshire Food Products. 9 million shares of Interstate stock.
With the merger, Interstate held two national bread divisions: Butternut and Wonder Bread. On September 22, 2004, Interstate Bakeries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company named a new chief executive, Tony Alvarez. Under Craig Jung, Interstate Bakeries emerged from bankruptcy as a private company on February 3, 2009. 2009 bankruptcy period Interstate closed nine of its 54 bakeries and more than 300 outlet stores, and its workforce declined from 32,000 to 22,000. The company dropped regional brands and operating agreements, such as an agreement to produce Sunbeam Bread for the northeastern U.