Twinkies will be back -- eventually

Snack food lovers, great news: Twinkies are coming back. The details haven't quite been hammered out yet, however.

"Somebody's going to make Twinkies -- that's not a concern," an anonymous source close to negotiations surrounding Hostess Brands told The Washington Post. "The question is who and how." 

Twinkie the Kid, the creamy sponge cake's longtime mascot, rode off into the sunset in November when Hostess announced it was shutting its doors after failing to resolve a dispute with its unionized workforce. About 18,000 people lost their jobs.

The business is being sliced up. More than a dozen firms have submitted bids for Hostess' bread business. The snack line, which also includes Yodels, Ring Dings and Devil Dogs,  will sell as well -- though it isn't clear who might buy it.  Little Debbie is not owned by Hostess as an earlier version of this post reported.

The creamy sponge cake has been a staple of the American diet since 1930. It also is an iconic brand, and those don't come on the market that often. Though people may have fond memories of Twinkies, that hasn't translated into sales. According to the Post, Twinkies sales last year were only about $74 million -- small potatoes for Hostess' $1 billion snack business.

Mexico's Grupo Bimbo, the world's largest breadmaker and the parent of Entenmann's, may be a potential Twinkie bidder along with Flowers Foods (FLO), the second-largest U.S. maker of baked goods. A Grupo Bimbo spokesman declined to comment. Flowers Foods agreed earlier this month to acquire Wonder, Nature's Pride and three other Hostess bread brands for $360 million. Among Flowers' other brands are Tastykake, a Philadelphia snack company that the company acquired in 2011. A spokesman for Flowers couldn't immediately be reached.

--Jonathan Berr does not own shares of the listed stocks.  Follow him on Twitter @jdberr. Post was corrected at 10:13 AM on January 28 to remove erroneous suggestion that Hostess owns Little Debbie.

More on moneyNOW

• Interview early to get that job
  
• Why restaurants are banning shutterbugs
  
• Not a college grad? No recovery for you