Goodbye, Interstate Bakeries Corporation, sort of

It’s a move as much on paper as anything (only 10 jobs will leave Kansas City) but it’s still a psychological blow that IBC is relocating its headquarters to Dallas. Why, it was just last week that Fat City was talking about the problems IBC had faced, the new bread it was releasing and how we were rooting for it. Things won’t be the same now that it’ll be a Dallas Company.

In response to that post, IBC was kind enough to send over a loaf of Nature’s Pride honey wheat and whole wheat, two of its new choices. While the packaging was lackluster — the blue and black of the logo resembles too much a store brand — the bread was good. Especially the honey wheat, which doesn’t have that sickly sweet taste that plagues a lot of honey wheat breads. The big selling point is not just taste, it’s the fact they are made with no artificial flavors, colors, preservatives or high-fructose corn syrup. Sure enough, the ingredient list is just wheat flour, water, yeast, gluten and brown sugar.

Considering that the most press an IBC product has ever gotten is Spy Magazine’s infamous Twinkies experiment, this marks a new direction for IBC — a direction that unfortunately also takes the company’s corporate offices south of here. Still, IBC classics like Wonder Bread and those beloved Twinkies will continue to be made in Kansas City, so I’m just going to treat IBC like a prodigal son that feels the need to move for a while before coming home.