< PreviousSEPTEMBER 202120Written by Nate Hendley These are busy times at Globe Food Equipment Corporation, a Dayton, Ohio-based firm which designs and manufactures com-mercial kitchen equipment. Since Business in Focus profiled Globe in October 2018, the company has introduced new products, adjusted to the market realities of COVID, and taken up distribution duties for a company called Varimixer.Globe Food Equipment is headquartered in Dayton and has a warehouse in Canada to stock material for Canadian dealers. Globe’s main product cat-egories are slicers, mixers, scales, cooking gear, and other food preparation items, all sold through a dealer network rather than directly to customers.Foodservice businesses like restaurants and delicatessens and food retail establishments like grocery stores are the two biggest markets for Globe’s wares. The company’s market reach within these sectors has greatly expanded since we last spoke in 2018. “Now that we’re part of Middleby, it opens up some international opportunities because Middleby is an international company. We were a little limited on what we were doing internationally prior to Middleby. Middleby operates companies pretty much around the world, which will open up some new oppor-tunities,” says Todd Clem, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Globe Food Equipment. Globe already has an established presence in domestic markets. “We’re pretty well represented [in the U.S.] except for food retail right now,” he continues. The company recently hired a food retail business development manager to help expand this segment for the company.“We build very good products. We’re not the cheapest, but we’re not the most expensive either. The value for what you get is unsur-passed,” says Clem. “We told people: ‘Do you really want to buy the cheapest thing you can get and then be replacing it in eight months, or do you want to spend a little bit more money and have something that’s going to last you fifteen to twenty years?’”On top of this, the company offers comprehensive customer support. It has a team of authorized service providers who handle repairs, maintenance tasks, and installation as well as a huge spare parts catalogue that can be accessed through its website.The attention to quality and customer support is a natural outcome of the company culture. The firm prefers to hire new team members who fit these values and adhere to its mission, vision, and core beliefs.“We promote teamwork a lot. We have open communication within the company. We operate openly so people know what’s going on within the company. We promote activities that strengthen teamwork—outreach activities that involve the entire company. We hire from within whenever possible. One of the things we’re looking for is people that are looking to grow within our company,” Clem explains. Globe has introduced several new products since 2018, includ-ing immersion blenders which have proven to be top sellers. “We have also added a tabletop power drive unit and replaced a thirty-pound scale with a newer version and [reduced the price]. We also added a new slicer,” he says.The company also recently launched vacuum packaging chambers, designed to remove air from a package before applying a seal. Adding vacuum packaging chambers further solidifies Globe as one of Middleby’s leading food prep equip-ment providers.Having Middleby for a parent company was beneficial when the COVID pandemic hit hard in March of last year. Clem credits “Globe has introduced several new products of its own, including immersion blenders which have proven to be top sellers.” SEPTEMBER 202122Middleby with providing direction to the companies it owns to ensure that everyone stayed healthy. “We sent a lot of people home to work from there. Those neces-sary functions that had to be performed in the building were spatially separated. We had very strong protocols in place. Every time you walked into the building, there were certain things you needed to do, such as get your temperature taken, wash your hands. There were requirements to sanitize your personal work area every day. Masks were required. Visitors were not allowed into the buildings. Slowly, we brought people back from working at home. We also made sure there was cleaning that went on by an outside cleaning company on a weekly basis, and travel was limited,” he says. The company has recovered its footing, however, and is now flourishing. Revenue for 2021 is so far exceeding revenue from the same period in pre-pandemic 2019, according to Clem. With COVID hopefully receding and overall economic conditions improving, Globe is looking to grow the team and anticipates having “maybe fifty-five workers by the end of Q3,” he adds. He attributes the company’s ability to survive and thrive during the pandemic to a variety of factors, such as 23BUSINESS IN FOCUS pent-up demand from reopening businesses like restau-rants, which were temporarily closed when the virus was rampant, as well as its extensive inventory and the quality of its products. While COVID disrupted supply chains around the world, “we had inventory and could get inventory faster than most,” he notes.That is not to say Globe has overcome every logistical hurdle thrown up by the pandemic. Moving products “is the biggest challenge we have; it’s not being able to build the product,” he continues. “The hardest part is just getting it from point A to point B. Some of our manufacturing partners are overseas, and trying to find space on a container ship right now is a challenge.”Product design is done in-house, while manufacturing is split between Dayton and partner firms in other countries, and this leads to another reason why business at Globe did not collapse in the face of COVID.COVID also had a major effect on sales and marketing. Most trade shows and industry events were cancelled, and many clients did not want to meet in person. As a result, sales repre-sentatives began communicating with clients virtually or over the phone, and the company enhanced its internet presence. Globe has a blog, website, and social media accounts and hosts online training sessions, some of which are based around activity in a test kitchen. The aim is to create lively, engaging online content. “We’ve developed a pretty strong virtual presence. We’ve done a lot of virtual training,” says Clem. The company tries to establish “some back and forth interaction between people. Generally, that has worked very, very well, instead of someone standing in front of a camera and narrating for thirty to forty minutes… We have found a lot of value [in online promotion]. I think some of that has helped our sales escalate.” Amid the pandemic and all the accompanying challenges, Globe became involved with Varimixer through the Middleby Corporation, a foodservice equipment giant headquartered in Elgin, Illinois which serves as the parent company to both firms. Middleby acquired Varimixer in June 2017 then purchased Globe later that same year. It was decided that Globe would take over North American distribution, marketing, and sales of Varimixer products starting January 1, 2021. The partnership has been a big success, says Clem. SEPTEMBER 202124 Content Developed by Aaron Ferguson | Designed by Ashley DowlingAs its name implies, Varimixer is completely focused on mixers. “Varimixer designs products that take hygiene and ergonom-ics to another level—above anybody else in our industry right now. They build machines that are ergonomically [designed] to be simpler for the customer to use. The machines are built in such a way that there is little to no external hardware to clean around,” he says.“With Globe, you have a stronger sales network. We have closer ties to the rep groups. We have a much stronger marketing group. There were a lot of advantages in Globe taking on Varimixer in North America in terms of marketing and selling,” he states. Globe has no intention of resting on its laurels and is deter-mined to innovate and introduce new products. “There are four products that we’re working on right now.”As for the future, Clem says, “I see Globe becoming a leading food prep company for Middleby. That’ll be our focus—strengthening our food prep equipment. I see Globe expanding our international presence and expanding our food retail presence.” 25BUSINESS IN FOCUS Written by Jen HockenMPM Food Equipment Group provides commercial food equipment in the foodservice and food retail markets. The company pairs the highest quality food equipment and design services with attentive, customer-centric service for customers ranging from supermarket chains to res-taurants and pizzerias. The company’s product line of food equipment includes PizzaMaster electric pizza ovens, bakery equipment, and other cooking equipment used in foodservice and food retail. For the last thirteen years, MPM has supplied Whole Foods with its top-of-the-line food equipment combined with full-service customer support. 27BUSINESS IN FOCUS After working for two other well-known foodservice equipment companies and eventually getting laid off, Larry Nicholson started the MPM Food Equipment Group in his basement in July of 2003. “I've been in the supermarket part of the business my whole career, and so without a job and with three little kids in a north suburb of Chicago, I needed to get back to work. I incorporated MPM Food Equipment Group, and the name stands for Matthew, Patrick, and Mark, my three boys.” He chose the rest of the name to make clear that the business would represent multiple companies.Approximately one-and-a-half years later, Nicholson moved the business out of the house and leased a 2,500-square-foot building. A couple of key people were brought into the business for administration and sales, and these people are still with the company today. MPM began to grow quickly at this point and soon moved on to lease a 5,000-square-foot building. The growth rate continued to pick up, and in 2014, the company embraced the opportunity to purchase a 48,000-square-foot building in Wheeling, Illinois. MPM leases out half of the space and operates from the other 24,000 square feet. In 2011, MPM acquired a company called Connecticut Food and Weighing Equipment to further expand its market reach. The new branch manages all of the northeast states for MPM, and the part-nership has turned out to be quite profitable for both parties. “We had growth every year consistently, and we got to the point where we're a $20 million business, and then about three years ago, we kind of peaked and started declin-ing. Whole Foods was purchased by Amazon and they quit building new stores, which slowed down our growth,” says Nicholson, MPM’s founder and President. At its peak in 2018, MPM had a staff of twenty-four people but was forced to let a few go due to similar patterns with other supermarket chains affecting its growth. As a result of the pandemic, the decline in sales for MPM did not last very long. “When everybody was staying home, they still went shopping, so supermarkets kept chugging along and replacing equipment, and we stayed alive there. But the big thing was the pizza business,” explains Nicholson. The pizza section of the food retail market was incredibly active throughout the pandemic. Many restaurants had to shut down but were still permitted to offer carry-out and delivery services. This motivated some restaurant owners to add pizza to their menus, which led to a huge increase in demand for MPM. Its pizza oven sales in 2020 were approximately fifty percent higher than the previous year. Although the pandemic resulted in significant growth for MPM, some difficulties have followed. Currently, the supply chain for SEPTEMBER 202128manufacturers, in general, is a problem. The lead times for equip-ment have extended considerably because manufacturers are waiting for components. When most of the United States shut down and non-essential manufacturers closed their plants, it had a ripple effect throughout many markets. One product that has been less affected by supply chain interruptions is the PizzaMaster electric deck oven. MPM imports the PizzaMaster oven from Borås, Sweden, and its parts are sourced from within Europe. MPM is the exclusive distributor and provider of the PizzaMaster electric deck ovens in the United States. Alongside the MPM’s Whole Foods buyer, Nicholson met the founder of BakePartner, the supplier of PizzaMaster at a restaurant show in Toronto in 2008. Christer Andersson was working the booth for his Canadian distributor of PizzaMaster ovens, and MPM’s Whole Foods buyer was interested in the product. This was the beginning of the partnership with PizzaMaster. Roughly five years later, MPM was installing PizzaMaster ovens in all the Whole Foods across the country. Whole Foods now purchases only PizzaMaster products for its locations whether it is for a remodel, a new store, or a replacement.For MPM, the PizzaMaster products are selling even faster in 2021. Currently, sales are forty-seven percent above last year's numbers. The key factor is that these ovens are electric and Next >