01940 Spring 2022 V4_Reduced

SPRING 2022 | 11
Jon Durkee has been president of
Durkee Mower since the late 2010s,
but he has been involved in the family
business for much longer.
Durkee's grandfather H. Allen Durkee,
along with Fred L. Mower partnered to
create the now popular Marshmallow Fluff
in 1918.
"It's been a family business and I've always
wanted to be a part of it,'' he said.
As a teenager, the current president of the
company worked at the factory during a couple
of summer seasons, but he wasn't overly
preoccupied with his father's profession.
"We had Fluffernutters for lunch fairly
often and a lot of fluff and hot chocolate,
but honestly I was just a regular kid and
wasn't really paying attention to what my
father did for a living," he said.
Durkee never imagined himself as the future
president of the company. Early on, he
just wanted to work with his father, Donald
Durkee.
"I love him very much and I thought it
would be a good career choice, and it was,"
he said.
After getting married, Jon Durkee moved
to Lynnfield in 1987.
"The thing that we liked the best about
Lynnfield was that it's a fairly quiet town,"
he said. "It kind of gave us a New Hampshire
vibe. It's quaint. There's a lot of nice
charm to it."
Durkee Mower, Lynn's Marshmallow
Fluff factory, has been able to stay afloat
during COVID-19 unlike some businesses,
but pandemic-driven, supply-chain issues
have not spared the company.
In January, the factory was forced to shut
down for a few days due to staffing shortages
caused by positive COVID-19 cases. The
factory has also been forced to shut down for
hours at a time due to late deliveries caused
by global supply-chain disruptions.
"That's another thing that COVID has
brought in," he said. "You have trucking
shortages, truck drivers are out and next
thing you know, what you were expecting to
have delivered on Monday doesn't get there
until Wednesday. And the next thing you
know, you've run out of sugar or some other
material that you need to produce."
Durkee Mower has been in Lynn since
1929 when it first moved its opperations to
Empire Street.
Durkee said that the future is hard to
predict, but he hopes that the company will
continue to operate and expand.
"My kids are now working here and I'm
showing them the ropes the way my father
showed me the ropes," he said. "Hopefully it
will last another several generations."
Longtime Lynnfield resident Jon Durkee has seen his family's
Lynn business change through the years.
PHOTO COURTESY | JON DURKEE