Twinkies

Twinkies

Whole and split Twinkies
Type	Snack cake
Place of origin	United States
Region or state	River Forest, Illinois (Chicago, Illinois)
Created by	James Dewar
Main ingredients	Wheat flour, sugar, corn syrup, niacin, water, high fructose corn syrup, Eggs, shortening, and others

A Twinkie is an American snack cake, marketed as a "Golden Sponge Cake with Creamy Filling." It was formerly made and distributed by Hostess Brands. The brand is currently owned by Hostess Brands, Inc. (NASDAQ: TWNK), having been formerly owned by private equity firms Apollo Global Management and C. Dean Metropoulos and Company as the second incarnation of Hostess Brands. During bankruptcy proceedings, Twinkie production was suspended on November 21, 2012, and resumed after an absence of at least ten months from American store shelves, becoming available again nationwide on July 15, 2013.

Twinkies are produced in Canada by Saputo Incorporated's Vachon Inc. (at a bakery in Montreal), which owns the Canadian rights to the product and still made them during their absence from the U.S. market. Twinkies are also available in Mexican stores as "Submarinos" and "Twinkies" made by Marinela, and as "Tuinky" made by Wonder; both Marinela and Wonder are subsidiaries of Mexican bread company Grupo Bimbo. In Egypt, Twinkies are produced under the company Edita. Twinkies are also available in the United Kingdom and Ireland under the Hostess brand name where they're sold in Sainsburys, Tesco, ASDA and B&M stores. Twinkies are produced and distributed by multiple commercial bakeries in China, where Hostess does not own the brand.

Twinkies were invented in Schiller Park, Illinois on April 6, 1930, by James Alexander Dewar, a baker for the Continental Baking Company. Realizing that several machines used to make cream-filled strawberry shortcake sat idle when strawberries were out of season, Dewar conceived a snack cake filled with banana cream, which he dubbed the Twinkie. Ritchy Koph said he came up with the name when he saw a billboard in St. Louis for "Twinkle Toe Shoes." During World War II, bananas were rationed and the company was forced to switch to vanilla cream. This change proved popular, and banana-cream Twinkies were not widely re-introduced. The original flavor was occasionally found in limited-time promotions, but the company used vanilla cream for most Twinkies. In 1988, Fruit and Cream Twinkies were introduced with a strawberry filling swirled into the cream. The product was soon dropped. Vanilla's dominance over banana flavoring would be challenged in 2005, following a month-long promotion of the movie King Kong. Hostess saw its Twinkie sales rise 20 percent during the promotion, and in 2007 restored the banana-cream Twinkie to its snack lineup.