I was out of the country for a week, so took a break from my bread quest. When I returned, I simply chose one of the front-runners instead of seeking out a new bread to try.

Hostess brands was in the news while I was in China, and my blog stats reflected it. I had expected to have low numbers of visits to my site while I was on hiatus. Instead, I had two record days for visits after the announcement about the July 15 return of Twinkies hit the national press.

I searched through the news today to see if I could find anything new about Home Pride Bread. Unfortunately, there just wasn’t anything out there. I also checked out the investor section of the Flowers Foods website and although they have updated their investor presentation, there was no news about Home Pride.

I did find several articles about the return of the Hostess snack cakes, including the news about a July 15 celebration in Emporia, Kansas where one of the snack cake plants is restarting production. We now have only 10 days until Twinkies are back on the shelves.

I also talked to the bread man today at one of the stores I shop at. He was stocking the shelves with Grupo Bimbo products, but took the time to talk to me about recent changes in bread availability. He said that many people have mentioned to him that they are missing Home Pride Bread, but not so many that miss Wonder bread. He recommended that I try the Rainbo Butter Top Wheat as it is the closest of the Bimbo breads to Home Pride.

I mentioned that I had tried it and that it was good, but not Home Pride.

Rainbo Butter Top Wheat Bread is one of several breads that have been introduced or re-introduced into the market in an attempt to capture the market share that was deserted by the Hostess bread brands. You can usually spot the breads that have been introduced as the packaging is often similar in coloring and appearance to Home Pride.

One of my readers from the northwest sent me a pictures of Franz Home Style Split Top Wheat. Thanks Anna.

The packaging is similar to Home Pride, but I can not tell you how it tastes. Franz Bakery is based in the Northwest and does have one location in California, but it is in the far north of the state.

Cascade Pride Split Top Wheat is another bread that has that Home Pride look to the packaging. I was able to try this bread and you can read my review by clicking on the link above.

Of course, there have also been new entries in the snack cake market as other bakeries scrambled to pick up the market share that had been held by Hostess Brands. I tried out one of the new Twinkie clones and wrote about it in Twinkie Wannabes.

With the return of Twinkies on July 15, it will be interesting to see if they can regain the previous market share that they had before Hostess went bankrupt. What will happen to some of the Twinkie clones that were introduced into the market?

In the past week I have also been checking the bread aisles of several stores to see if Flowers Foods has started delivering Nature’s Own in my area. I am still disappointed. I asked the Bimbo bread man if he had heard when they might be getting this new competition and he thought it might still be a couple months.

I am wondering if Flowers Foods is taking it slow until they know the results of the regulatory review of their purchase of the Hostess bread brands. If Flowers Foods were to increase their market share in California too much, it may lead to them having to divest some of their brands to other distributors just as Bimbo had to with their acquisition of Sara Lee.

Hopefully regulatory approval for the purchase of Home Pride Bread will come soon for Flowers foods and I won’t have to worry about trying new breads. I can go back to my delicious Home Pride Bread. Will it live up to my memories?

Steven

To see my other posts about bread or other Hostess products, click on Home Pride Bread.