Continental Baking Co. - Stock Certificate

Specimen Stock printed by American Bank Note Company.

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.

In 1849, Robert Boyd Ward founded the Ward Baking Company in New York City. In 1921, grandson William Ward took over the company and in 1925 renamed it the Continental Baking Company.

Continental Baking acquired the Wagner Baking Company in Detroit, Michigan. In 1925 it bought Taggart Baking Company, the maker of Wonder Bread, and became the largest commercial bakery in the United States. Twinkie snack cakes were invented in 1930 in Schiller Park, Illinois, by James Alexander Dewar, a baker at Continental Baking Company. In 1964 Continental expanded operations by acquiring Mexican bread manufacturer Tip Top, based in Mexico City.

Continental was based in New York from 1923 to 1984. It also had its executive offices in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Continental was purchased by ITT in 1968, then sold to Ralston Purina in 1984. It was purchased by Interstate Bakeries Corporation in 1995. The combined company was rebranded Hostess Brands in 2009.

Hostess Brands (the former Interstate Bakeries Corporation) closed in 2012. During the liquidation process, it again changed its name, to Old HB. An entirely new and separate entity, New HB Acquisition LLC, was established in 2013, 50% owned by HB Holdings, LLC, a venture set up by Apollo Global Management and C. Dean Metropoulos and Company. New HB Acquisition acquired the brand names and some plants and other assets from Old HB, then renamed itself as Hostess Brands.

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