Drake's - History

History

The company's founder, Newman E. Drake, baked his first pound cake in Brooklyn, New York, in 1888. He sold it by the slice. Popularity increased, and soon a whole line of cakes was produced.

By the late 1960s, the resulting Drake Bakeries was owned by the huge Borden food company, along with Cracker Jack and Wise Potato Chips. In 1987, Borden sold the company to Ralston Purina, which owned ITT Continental Baking Company, makers of rival Hostess Cakes and Wonder Bread. This created a virtual monopoly in some areas, soon overturned. While the union lasted, Hostess was able to use the name Ding Dong for its Ring Ding clone in formerly restricted areas; when dissolved, instead of restoring the product's original Big Wheels moniker, Hostess compromised with a new "King Dons" trademark for the affected areas. During this period, Drake's celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1988, and Steve Gratzel, head of Drake's research and development department, produced the world's largest Ring Ding cake. Drake's was soon sold off to management.

For a time in the 1980s, Drake's produced a line of imitation Twinkies, including versions filled with strawberry, banana, or chocolate creme. They were originally called Shortcakes. Later, when only the plain vanilla Twinkie-clone was being produced, they were renamed Zoinks!, before the line was discontinued for good.

Drake's was acquired by the Canadian company Culinar in 1991. Among the highlights of this period was the introduction of a pastry called "Pick 'M Ups", which became the only Drake's brand product to contain animal fats. A frosted chocolate cupcake that looked like Hostess' signature CupCake with a white icing swirl also appeared under the Drake's label, though Drake's never produced such an item on their own. In 1994 Culinar also initiated a drastic restructuring and optimization of the company-owned routes, which enabled Drakes to become profitable by 1997.

In 1998 Drake's was sold by Culinar, Inc., to Interstate Bakeries Corporation, which had previously acquired ITT/CBC and its Hostess and Wonder brands. The resultant market concentration was not overturned, because other companies such as Little Debbie avoided it, having sufficiently expanded market share since the previous monopoly arbitration. In the New York City area Drake's and Hostess operations were combined, sharing the same trucks, delivery routes, and store racks. Some Hostess cakes distributed in the Northeast, such as Twinkies and Ding Dongs, were produced at the Drake's bakery and bore a kosher certification symbol in those areas.

A leveraged buyout by Ripplewood Holdings of Interstate Bakeries Corporation in 2009 left the company with a remarkably heavy debt load. The new owners rechristened the company as "Hostess Brands" and moved the headquarters to Irving, with the operations center in Kansas City, Missouri. Managers underfunded the pension plan as the struggled to manage the debt and further provoked workers by tripling the compensation of top executives after union employees accepted cuts. On November 16, 2012, the Hostess Brand company announced plans shut down and to liquidate all assets.