Today I was able to find a box of Twinkies.

Since the time I heard on Friday that Wal-Mart and a few other stores were going to start selling Twinkies before the July 15 return date, I have been hunting for them. Click on the link for Friday’s post to see my initial thoughts on the return.

On Friday I checked the Wal-Mart near work without success. On Saturday I checked the local Wal-Mart, again without success. Finally, I checked the Wal-Mart near church and they had them!

I also checked a few grocery stores as well, and did find something that I will share later in the post.

If you have not seen Twinkies at your local store yet, tomorrow will be the day. July 15 had been set as the target date for the return of Twinkies.

When Hostess went bankrupt back in November, I made the following statement in my post: Not My Bread!!

… do you really think that they will be gone forever? Someone will buy the brand name and the recipes and they will be back in production, it will only be a matter of time.

That time has now passed and Twinkies are back in production. There are still some of the snack cakes that have not made their comeback. Zingers, Ho Hos and Orange CupCakes and others will be back by August and Sno-Balls will bring up the rear sometime in the fall.

There are two interesting parts of this Twinkies box. First, the new slogan “The Sweetest Comeback in the History of Ever.” And then the First Batch ribbon. Should I keep the box?

I had one friend comment that the Twinkies are a little smaller. I decided to check to see if this was the case and it is. The new Twinkies have shrunk by about 1.5 ounces and have dropped from 150 to 135 calories. So, if you are counting calories you get a little break 🙂

Do the new Twinkies taste the same? In my memory, they do taste the same. They are also so much better than the Twinkie Wannabes out there. They have a nice texture and have a great balance of taste between the cake and the filling.

So, will the new Twinkies regain the market share that they lost? That is an interesting question.

Oh, I mentioned something else that I saw at a grocery store.

While at the grocery store in Patterson this afternoon I saw these sandwich buns on an end cap. I went to the bread aisle hoping to see Nature’s Own bread on the the shelves. I was disappointed, but see this as a positive sign that it will soon be on the shelves. The Golden Sesame Sandwich Rolls did look really good, but I didn’t see a need for them in the next week.

For the complete Hostess Foods/Home Pride Bread saga, click on Home Pride Bread. You can find links to all of the previous posts listed there.

Steven