• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, July 15, 2013

Eight months ago, Twinkies and other Hostess Brands looked doomed, when the already financially troubled company shut down in the wake of a crippling bakers strike.

But Twinkies are back: More than 50 million will hit stores this week, as the new owners of many of Hostess's snack-cake brands -- including CupCakes, Ding Dongs and Sno Balls -- reboot the company. (Those other snack-cake brands will also soon be back in stores, according to the new Hostess Brands, LLC site, which is offering to send emails alerting consumers when Twinkies and the other cakes do hit store shelves.) 

The private-equity owners, Metropoulos & Co. and Apollo Global Management, are greatly streamlining the operations of the now-smaller company (the Hostess Drake's and bread brands were sold to McKee Foods and Flowers Foods, respectively), including reducing its workforce to 1,800 non-union employees, versus the old company's 19,000 largely unionized workers, reported The Wall Street Journal. They also say they will be investing in product innovation and marketing investment. 

But company-specific financial/management issues aside, there are important brand lessons to be gleaned from the Twinkie saga -- particularly for the snack-cake category, says a new report from Rabobank.

Those key takeaways:

* Iconic brands have a long shelf life.At a time when private-label offerings are stealing market share from national brands, the market for Twinkies is not in doubt because of the brand's "iconic" status and large, loyal customer base, say Rabobank's analysts.  (The report's choice of the words "long shelf life" is somewhat ironic, as the new Hostess snack-cake brand owners just announced that the literal shelf life of Twinkies will, as of Nov. 1, be extended from 26 to 45 days, through methods not being revealed for "proprietary reasons." However, given the observation below, perhaps the methods for preserving the products to extend shelf life wouldn't be of great concern to Twinkie fans.) 

* “We never said we were healthy.” Twinkies have never pretended to be healthy, and that’s just fine with most people, says Rabobank. While health is a key trend in the baked-goods sector, so is indulgence -- about 60% of the U.S. population view snacks as an opportunity to splurge, preferring what tastes good rather than what is healthy. 

* “Don’t pimp my Twinkie.”Twinkies have become iconic in part because they've "stoically withstood the changing times as consumers cycled through low-carb, low-fat, and high-protein phases," says Rabobank, which suggests that any move to change the recipe to fit popular dietary trends might only backfire.

* Cutting a bigger slice of a larger cake.  Marketing innovations from candy manufacturers and the successful takeover by Flowers Foods of TastyKake suggest that there are "plenty of strategies to continue expanding the snack-cake market," suggests Rabobank. Snack cakes also play well to the new snacking culture in terms of portability, convenience and affordability, the report observes.