Welbilt, Inc. is an internationally recognized family of brands designing, manufacturing, and delivering commercial kitchen equipment and services worldwide. Food and beverage services cover facilities in foodservice, hospitality, healthcare, education, travel, catering, and small retail businesses. Welbilt offers a complete suite of products and services that can store, cook, hold, serve, and dispense hot and cold food and beverages, catering to the needs of all these industries. Besides, the company provides innovative kitchen startup and aftersales solutions. With its 12 elite brands and 3 innovative services, Welbilt has something to handle every step in foodservice operations.
Welbilt Brands
Welbilt introduces itself as “more than a name – it’s a promise.” resting on the founders, the Hirsch brothers’ commitment to “bringing innovation to the table.” Over the years, the company’s name, partners, and subsidiaries have changed. Still, the passion for constant innovation in search of excellence has remained the primary drive. Therefore, Welbilt has always worked with brands that have pursued the same goal stipulated by the same drive. Each manufacturer addresses different needs of commercial kitchens so Welbilt can offer complete kitchen solutions to its customers.
1. Cleveland
Established in 1847, Cleveland is an internationally-recognized leader in steam cooking equipment, clinging to its “timeless quality” motto. It has gained a reputation for delivering the best braising pans & tilt skillets, steam-jacketed kettles, and pressure and convection steamers. Cleveland never ceased evolving and developed many firsts in Welbilt Development Center in Tampa, Fl. For example, it introduced the first kitchen steamer (1974), combination pressure and pressureless steamer (1987), vertical steam boiler (1993), and boilerless convection oven (2002).
2. Convotherm
Convotherm has been delivering top-of-the-line commercial combi ovens since 1976, continuously raising the standard in product and service quality and efficiency. Besides quality, engineers work tirelessly to improve their products’ user-friendliness, sustainability, and aesthetics. This rigor in product development has brought them many patents. The energy-saving Closed System for Combi Ovens (1982), the fully automatic cleaning called CONVOClean system (2002), and easySystem, the first touchscreen panel for a combi steamer (2007), are some of its patented products. Convotherm became a Welbilt subsidiary in 2017.
3. Crem
Crem joined the Welbilt family in 2018 as a leading brand in professional coffee machines. Brewing coffee is a passion. Grinding the coffee beans without losing the smell and aroma into lightly caramelized frothy espresso is an art in its own right. Any form of art requires a crafty hand as well as the right tools. Crem blends cutting-edge technologies and the everlasting hand brew coffee tradition and designs an extensive line of coffee makers, from manual to fully automatic machines, coffee grinders, and filter brewers.
4. Delfield
Founded in 1949, Delfield is one of the world’s leading refrigeration equipment manufacturers. The company has been producing refrigerators, freezers, and refrigerated work tables as part of Welbilt, Inc. since 1999. Delfield markets its appliances under three categories. Besides reach-ins, blast chillers, and equipment stands in the refrigeration group; you can find beverage coolers, display cases, and dispensers in the serving systems category. The drop-ins, utility stands, refrigerated prep tables, and hot food tables in the third category, fabrication, allow you to create customizable production centers.
5. Frymaster
Frying is the staple cooking method in practically every segment of the foodservice industry because fryers can cook everyone’s favorite snacks, side dishes, or main courses. Welbilt’s choice in fryers is Frymaster. Frymaster has used premium technologies and creative ideas to develop fryers, filter machines, oil caddies, and food warmers since 1935. Computer-controlled frying, built-in automatic oil filtration, and high-efficiency fryer systems are some of the firsts Frymaster introduced. Whether you run a full-serve restaurant, cafeteria, or food truck, Frymaster has a frying solution to ensure an ongoing profit.
6. Garland
Garland started manufacturing stoves in 1864. Even in its early years, the company could produce more than 200 stove models. The company swiftly reached its passion of becoming the world’s best stove and range manufacturer. After the Garland Group was formed in 1995, the brand further diversified its product line. As a Welbilt member since 2008, Garland US Range has released high-quality ranges, innovative griddles, induction cooking equipment, broilers, fryers, and ovens. Garland’s effort to minimize cook times and energy use brought them four Kitchen Innovation Awards between 2017 and 2022.
7. Kolpak
Welbilt’s preference in walk-in refrigeration systems is Kolpak because it protects your future through durable and dependable walk-in units. The quality and taste of the meals you serve on the customer’s tables start with the quality of food storage. Kolpak’s walk-in coolers, walk-in freezers, and walk-in cooler freezer combos can withstand the heaviest use in the busiest and largest food service facilities. The remote electronic control system, ArcticFox, in Kolpak walk-ins reduces defrost cycles, maximizes performance, facilitates tracking, and improves internal temperature retention.
8. Lincoln
A commercial kitchen would be incomplete without pizza ovens, so Welbilt has a member dedicated to pizza baking equipment. Renowned for its expertise in conveyor pizza ovens, Lincoln Impinger Ovens takes its top seat here. With the high-performance conveyor and impinger pizza ovens, Lincoln promises consistency in pizza baking even on non-stop days. Apart from being the first to manufacture impingement ovens in America, the brand also incorporates Fast Bake and ventless technologies in its ovens. Lincoln ovens are equipped with air impingement technology and conveyor belts to reduce cook times, increase output, and minimize operator errors.
9. Manitowoc
Manitowoc ice machines are engineered for ease to decrease the challenges and simplify the workflow in commercial kitchens. That’s why Manitowoc is the ice machine provider of the Welbilt organization. Ice, particularly the nugget ice, is now an edible commodity, so extreme caution should be used in production and storage. Manitowoc’s diligence in food safety and devotion to innovation to increase user-friendliness and greenness made the brand America’s best-selling ice machine manufacturer.
(Note: Welbilt announced in March 2022 that “it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its Manitowoc® Ice business to Pentair.”)
10. Merco
Cooking delectable dishes is one thing, but retaining the flavor until it reaches customers is something else. Merco builds a bridge between your kitchen and customers, enabling you to serve quality on demand. The CrispyMax™ fried-food stations and MercoMax™ hot-holding cabinets keep food hot and healthy at serving temperatures. Merco also offers pickup lockers allowing self-serve and express pickup of food, beverage, or dessert orders. Merco has been under the Welbilt banner since 1985.
11. Merrychef
No matter what restaurant style you have, your customers will demand one thing: mouthwatering menus in no time. Therefore, taste and speed are the core of today’s commercial kitchen concepts, but not at the expense of quality and consistency. This is where Merrychef comes into play. From the world’s first commercial pure microwave oven to the latest Connex series, Merrychef has always shaped the future of high-speed cooking. The groundbreaking technologies in its Eikon series high-speed ovens won the Kitchen Innovation Award for several years. The brand’s rapid cook ovens gained global recognition under the Welbilt name from 2008 onwards.
12. Multiplex
Multiplex entered the Welbilt group to refresh customers’ dining experience by quenching their thirst with cold frosty beers and chilled soft drinks. Multiplex VISION series beer coolers and ICECORE series soft drink coolers feature a remote cooling system. They use HFC-free refrigerants for eco-friendliness and promise “whole-life cost reduction.” Albi series beverage dispensers deliver still and carbonated drinks and water ice-cold. The brand’s Fresh Blender® is a self-serve beverage dispenser preparing fresh blends like fruit smoothies, frappes, milkshakes, and lemonades.
Welbilt Services
No two foodservice establishments are alike in many respects. However, they all need the same thing for success: a seamless workflow from kitchen design to equipment selection. Welbilt has a promise to its customers: to connect people, technology, and food seamlessly for a sleek look, increased functionality, flexibility, and space efficiency. This means developing whole kitchen systems for customers. That’s why Welbilt partners with a wide selection of manufacturers. Besides premium products, customers also need services to integrate different appliances into one complete kitchen. The company does this with three one-of-a-kind services.
1. FitKitchen
FitKitchen is a unique Welbilt service providing innovative solutions to modern kitchen designs. Experts in the FitKitchen team bring together elite brands’ equipment, the culinary team’s expertise in cooking, and market development professionals’ research and analysis. The purpose is to offer its customers the most optimum and practical equipment, workstation concept, and kitchen design. The service delivers turn-key kitchen systems. The team also provides ghost kitchen, to-go, drive-thru, and no-touch delivery practices. Besides, you can ask for kitchen optimization suggestions and virtual culinary training for your existing establishment.
2. KitchenConnect
Designing a well-integrated kitchen doesn’t guarantee success alone. It should be continuously optimized to respond to emerging changes and expectations. Welbilt brands manufacture smart equipment. KitchenConnect is a digital platform that collects this data, analyzes it, and makes suggestions to optimize your kitchen operation. You get detailed reports about menu management, utility consumption, equipment status, or food demand analysis of peak and low business times. KitchenConnect agreed to work with HCL Technologies and started to offer a secure cloud solution using Microsoft Azure IoT.
3. KitchenCare
The final step in a thriving commercial kitchen operation is equipment maintenance. While you work hard to satisfy your diners, Welbilt handles the servicing issue through its KitchenCare system. KitchenCare is a planned maintenance program that starts with your equipment’s initial purchase and installation. The program adopts a proactive approach and schedules regular maintenance cycles to maximize equipment life span, achieving over a 95% first-time fix rate. You can also benefit from the self-help videos, documents, and software to troubleshoot common issues yourself. In case of a replacement, Welbilt uses performance-guaranteed genuine OEM parts.
Welbilt Today
Today, Welbilt is a global leader with 12 brands, each occupying the first or second place in their product segments. The company sells products and services in over 100 countries, with nearly 65% of the sales in America. The organization’s carefully selected names produce innovative equipment in cooking, beverage dispensing, ice production and storage, refrigeration, and food preparation & holding. That’s almost everything quick-serve or fast-casual restaurants, convenience stores, supermarkets, or hotels need. The company employs over 80 top-class chefs in its culinary team for product customization. Furthermore, Welbilt is the only company on the market developing complete kitchen systems.
