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Smucker’s $5.6 Billion Twinkies Bet Went Wrong — Can It Still Be Saved?

The J. M. Smucker Company made one of the biggest bets in its history when it acquired Hostess Brands for roughly $5.6 billion in 2023, bringing Twinkies, Donettes, Ding Dongs and other familiar snack brands into a portfolio already dominated by coffee, peanut butter, pet food and frozen sandwiches. The logic appeared straightforward: Hostess would give Smucker greater exposure to snacking, a large consumer category with attractive growth opportunities. Instead, the acquisition became a costly lesson in operational complexity, changing consumer behavior and the difficulty of integrating a business with very different manufacturing and distribution requirements. Billions of dollars of Hostess-related impairments have since highlighted how far actual performance fell short of initial expectations. Yet Smucker is not abandoning the business. Its latest earnings call points to stabilization efforts, stronger performance from parts of the Hostess portfolio and healthier results elsewhere in the company.