Smucker to Close Indianapolis Hostess Plant
The rocky ride continues for The J.M. Smucker Co. and its 18-month-old acquisition, Hostess Brands.
Smucker announced it will close its Indianapolis, Ind., Hostess processing facility, according to a release from the company and several news reports. The shutdown and potential sale of the property is expected to occur by early calendar year 2026, the company noted.
Production currently done at the Indianapolis plant will be consolidated to other existing operations, and approximately 371 employees would lose their jobs as a result of the closure. The company noted that it would provide additional information in the release of its 2025 fiscal year results, expected on June 10, 2025.
Judd Freitag, senior vice president and general manager, Pet and Sweet Baked Snacks, for Smucker, said the move is being made to optimize manufacturing costs and reduce complexity — and is a move being made to stabilize the Hostess brand, which Smucker acquired in November 2023.
It’s the latest move of several since the acquisition by Smucker to apparently get the sweet baked goods business, anchored at this point by Hostess, “right-sized.” The company sold off two former Hostess brands, Cloverhill and Big Texas, in February 2025, and had already divested the Voortman cookies brand in October 2024. Prior to that, in August 2024, Smucker shuttered the former Hostess headquarters in Lenexa, Kan.
Most recently, in the third quarter of fiscal 2025, Smucker took $1 billion in impairment charges to write down the value of its underperforming Hostess Brands acquisition — at which point Freitag also took the reins of the business from the former Hostess executive who was running the sweet baked goods business to that point.
According to one local news report, the plant opened in 1957 and made Wonder Bread and Hostess baked goods until Hostess declared bankruptcy and shut down in 2012. The plant was reopened in August 2015 and has been producing Hostess items since then.
