About Us

OVER 80 YEARS OF QUALITY, VALUE and SERVICE

At D.D. Bean & Sons Co. we earn our success one “light” at a time! 

Since D.D. Bean & Sons Co. began manufacturing paper book matches in 1938, our mission has been to offer consumers the least expensive and best performing ignition device on the market. 

Our quality assurance program meets or exceeds the matchbook safety standards established by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) as well as all other international standards regulating matches. Today, D.D. Bean & Sons Co. has grown to become the largest manufacturer of paper matchbooks in the world and our vision is stronger than ever: 

  • All of our matchbooks are still manufactured in the USA. 
  • All of our match stems are made from 100% recycled paperboard. 
  • Still the most affordable ignition source on the market. 

Our Clients

We focus our business on the large run national and regional labels for the North American market. We supply virtually all the leading wholesale grocers, convenience store distributors, food service suppliers, drug store chains, supermarkets, wholesale clubs and mass merchandisers throughout the United States and Canada. Our broad customer network offers the consumer many thousands of retail outlets to find our matches. 

History

In the midst of the Great Depression, Delcie D. Bean, Sr. (1883-1964), along with his two sons, Vernon and Delcie D. Bean, Jr. “Jack”, had an idea to start a factory to make matches. Delcie Bean, Sr. had already been involved for many years in the match industry; first as a timber man selling New Hampshire white pine to be used in the production of wooden matches back at the turn of the twentieth century, and later as a wooden match producer when he founded the New Hampshire Company in his home town of Jaffrey. But this time, rather than wooden matches, Delcie and his two sons decided the future of the industry would be paper matches. Paper book matches were becoming extremely popular in the U.S. at that time. They were less expensive and more convenient than wooden matches and the advertising space on the covers gave them added value.   

Although the industry was dominated by giant companies, through hard work and a lot of good luck, the three men finally got their chance. First they obtained low interest financing from a special government program designed to help start-up businesses during the depression, then they purchased an old textile mill in Jaffrey and bought some used equipment from other match companies. In June of 1938, everything was in place and D.D. Bean & Sons Co. began making their first matchbooks.  

Over seventy-five years and billions upon billions of matchbooks later, the company is still operating in that old textile mill in Jaffrey under the ownership and management of the third generation of the Bean family. Despite many changes in the market for matches, the company has survived to become the largest and most efficient producer of book matches in the world. Its recent acquisitions of Atlas Match Corp. in Texas and Eddy Match in Canada, establish D.D. Bean & Sons Co. as the leading company in the industry. The business is still going strong, still making millions of matchbooks every day and still earning its success one “light” at a time!