Continental Baking Company

Baker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, later part of Hostess Brands.

via Wikipedia: Continental Baking Company · see source

The Continental Baking Company was one of the first bakeries to introduce fortified bread. It was the maker of the Twinkie and Wonder Bread. Through a series of acquisitions and mergers it became part of the former Hostess Brands company.

Quick Facts

Founded

1849 (as Ward Baking Company)

Defunct

1995

Successor

Interstate Bakeries Corporation, Hostess Brands

Headquarters

New York City, New York, U.S.

Key people

Robert Boyd Ward

Industry

Food (Bakery)

Products

Brands including:
Wonder Bread
Twinkies

Facts from the source article.

Did You Know?

By November 1911, the company was selling 'Ward's Tip-top Bread' for 5 & 10 cents per loaf.
After Hostess Brands closed in 2012, a new entity called New HB Acquisition LLC was established in 2013, 50% owned by HB Holdings, LLC, a venture by Apollo Global Management and C. Dean Metropoulos and Company.

History

James Ward and his son Hugh Ward, immigrants from Belfast, Ireland, started a small bakery on Broome Street in New York City in 1849. In 1884, Hugh and his own son, Robert Boyd Ward, relocated to Allegheny city, which is now Pittsburgh, and established another bakery there. Robert B. Ward organized the Ward Bread Company in New York, Brooklyn, and Newark in 1900. Around 1910, Ward's Bakeries constructed two large factories, one in the Bronx at 143rd Street and Southern Boulevard and another in Brooklyn at the Ward Baking Company Building on Vanderbilt Avenue and Pacific Street, a move described as a triumphant return to New York. By November 1911, the company was selling its well-known Ward's Tip-top Bread for five and ten cents per loaf. William Ward, a grandson, took over the company in 1921 and changed its name to the Continental Baking Company in 1925. At the end of 1924, Continental Baking acquired the Wagner Baking Company in Detroit, Michigan, along with three other firms. In 1925, it purchased the Taggart Baking Company, which made Wonder Bread, making Continental the largest commercial bakery in the United States. The Twinkie snack cake was created in 1930 in Schiller Park, Illinois, by James Alexander Dewar, a baker working for Continental. Continental was headquartered in New York from 1923 to 1984, with executive offices also in Hoboken, New Jersey. M. Lee Marshall, a descendant of John Marshall, served as President and later Chairman from 1934 to 1944, and also acted as director of distribution for the War Food Administration in 1944. ITT bought Continental in 1968, then sold it to Ralston Purina in 1984. Interstate Bakeries Corporation purchased it in 1995, and the combined entity was rebranded as Hostess Brands in 2009. Hostess Brands, formerly Interstate Bakeries, shut down in 2012. During liquidation, it was renamed Old HB. A separate new company, New HB Acquisition LLC, was formed in 2013, half-owned by HB Holdings, LLC, a venture created by Apollo Global Management and C. Dean Metropoulos and Company. This new entity bought the brand names, some plants, and other assets from Old HB, then renamed itself Hostess Brands.