History
Beverage Machine & Fabricators’ history is long and rich in tradition. The company was founded 100 years ago in 1904 and was called the Cleveland Union Engineering Company. Located at the intersection of Cuyahoga and W. 4th streets in Cleveland’s historically industrial area known as The Flats, the company focused on manufacturing sprockets, gears, building tanks, hoppers, bins, chutes, conveyors, elevators, hoists, and cranes, as well as, a variety of custom services such as welding broken parts, fabricating and erecting structural steel, and rebabbitting or rebushing worn bearings.
In 1943 came a move to its current location on Lakewood Heights Boulevard, and with it a name change. As part of the war effort, the company continued to offer general machining work, but also expanded its services to include complete equipment manufacturing and fabricating for breweries, distilleries, dairies, and beverage plants. As a result, the company changed its name to Beverage Engineering and Equipment Company.
In June 1957, Beverage Engineering and Equipment changed its focus, incorporated, and changed its name to the current Beverage Machine and Fabricators, Inc. By the early 1960s, the company had become primarily a sub-contractor, which fabricated equipment for engineering forms or contractors to use in the construction of everything from sugar beet refineries to steel mills.
“No job is too small or too large,” said the company’s former president John Geiger, in a May 1962 article about Beverage Machine and Fabricators. The company definitely had found its niche.
“With facilities for 400-ton press brakes, electrical eye burning and heliarc welding, we’re equipped to handle anything from rockers and bolsters that connect bridge steelwork to concrete abutments, to such heavy machinery items as candy mixers, plastic extruding equipment and 100-ton industrial furnaces,” added Geiger.
Through all the name changes, the company’s mission has remained the same: Employ skilled, experienced craftsmen, using the best equipment, with a conscientious dedication to giving customers the best quality job possible. “Satisfied customers are the best source of additional business,” said John D. Geiger, current BM&F president.
Celebrating its 100th anniversary, Beverage Machine and Fabricators continues its rich tradition as a multi-dimensional, affordable and dependable, subcontractor offering a multitude of metalworking services to a variety of industries.
Today, Beverage Machine and Fabricators’ specialty is machining large parts to strict customer specifications. With a combined work area of more than 35,000 square feet, a 25-ton lifting capacity, and 15 mills and lathes, the company’s resources can handle prototypes to full production runs.