Alongside those coronavirus prep bags being filled by shoppers with bleach and hand sanitizer may be boxes of long shelf life Twinkies and Ding Dongs.
“We are seeing that,” Hostess Brands CEO Andy Callahan said on Yahoo Finance’s On the Move, when asked if he is seeing a bump in business as people stock up, should they be trapped at home due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Added Callahan, “We are benefiting likely in the short-term due to traffic. That’s the great thing about Hostess, we are there to celebrate things. We are there to comfort things. So we are seeing a slight uptick in traffic. It’s too early to tell, a lot of our point of sale data lags.”
Even without the bump in business, Hostess has been doing just fine.
Fourth quarter sales rose 6.7% from the prior year to $216.7 million on the back of momentum for breakfast items such as Donettes. Adjusted operating profits increased 6.3% year-over-year to $52.4 million.
