Jiffy is Spiffy

The Chelsea Milling Company

I chaperoned my son Bryant’s field trip to the Chelsea Milling Company, where Jiffy baking mixes are made, a few years ago. It was the first time I joined him on a field trip and we were both pretty excited although we hid it well because it wouldn't have been cool to let that be known.

I don’t remember everything about the experience. I do remember buying a case of Jiffy Mix - which included corn muffin mix, fudge brownie mix, banana and blueberry muffin mix and buttermilk biscuit mix – and I remember being impressed by the people who worked there, from the public relations person who conducted our tour of the plant to the friendly workers on the manufacturing line who couldn't hear us above the sounds of the machinery but who waved and smiled nonetheless. I remember thinking the company president, Howdy S. Holmes, had a silly name. I remember being proud of my charming, smart, well-behaved son, who packed us tasty sack lunches that he made himself (he even wrote my name in scrawling cursive on my paper lunch bag). And I remember being proud that Chelsea Milling Company had been manufacturing Jiffy Mix right here in my state since William Taft occupied the White House.

All of these memories were jogged by an article I ran across entitled, “Seven Reasons This Muffin Mix Can Save America.” Those who aren't willing or able to click on the link might want to know that the seven reasons include:

• The company sells over half of all muffin mixes in the United States but doesn't spend a dime on advertising.

• Jiffy Mix denies Wall Street the opportunity to make money from other people’s work.

• Company managers treat their employees the way they like to be treated.

• Jiffy Mix is focused on customer need, not shareholder greed.

• Jiffy Mix employees find meaning and purpose through their work.

• The company is honest.

• Jiffy Mix makes long-term decisions that benefit future generations, not current ownership.

In an era when I seem to be disappointed almost daily by this corporate decision or that business position – and by the U.S. Supreme Court’s ridiculous 2010 affirmation that “corporations are people” – it’s refreshing to read and write about a company that still places people above profit. The fact that this company is located less than an hour away from my home is icing on the Devil’s Food Cake (click here for that mix).

Thanks to the Chelsea Milling Company, almost anyone can bake a variety of products from a single box of mix regardless of culinary skill or gender. (The original product came about when Mabel White Holmes, Howdy’s late grandmother who was one of the company’s founders, noticed that the father of one of her son’s friends, a widower, couldn't bake his way out of a paper bag.) The family-owned and operated company now claims 350 employees and $100 million in annual sales and ships its still-affordable products to all 50 states.

To purchase Jiffy Mix products online, click here. To visit the company’s Facebook page, click here.

Incidentally, if you assumed the product name has something to do with speed, you’re right. Mabel White Holmes was trying to come up with the right name way back in the 1900s when she remembered how the family cook would tell her father that good, hot biscuits would be ready “in a jiffy.”

I think it’s time for Bryant and me to take a road trip to Chelsea again.


Sources: FundingUniverse.com, Policymic.com, Jiffymix.com.