Cosmetal Brand Guidelines: The Recanati Water Cooler Maker Named for Metal Constructions

A Recanati metal workshop that turned to cooling.

Cosmetal is an Italian maker of water coolers and drinking-water dispensers based at Recanati, in the province of Macerata in the Marche, a short journey inland from the Adriatic port of Ancona. Its name is a contraction of costruzioni metalliche, “metal constructions,” which the trade title FoodBev said reflected the company’s early work making metal components for the office market.

Sources give the start of the business slightly differently. The Celli Group, which owns Cosmetal today, says it was founded in the late 1950s in Recanati as an artisan firm with strong metalworking skills. Unquote, the private-equity news service, gave a founding year of 1950 when it reported the 2016 takeover, and placed the company in Macerata, the provincial name. In a FoodBev profile of the company, the magazine said the founder, the father of the then chairman Fabio Morilli, started out in the 1950s as a specialist maker of keyboards for electric organs and harmonicas, in a district also known for musical instruments; an original keyboard was kept in the chairman’s office as a reminder of those roots.

In the same profile, Cosmetal’s sales and marketing director Daniele Nava explained how the firm moved from keyboards and metal parts towards drinking water. In the 1970s, he said, the company became involved in refrigeration and related projects for the catering trade, and its first coolers were built for that market. The Celli Group dates the company’s first water coolers to the mid-1980s.

Niagara, Rio and a range for many settings.

Cosmetal’s own account of its range, as given to FoodBev, begins with catering. Nava named the Niagara as the company’s first point-of-use machine for the catering industry — a dispenser connected to the mains rather than fed by a bottle — and said it was then the longest-serving product in the range. A family of drinking fountains followed, including the River, which he said was aimed at schools, hospitals and municipal buyers.

Bottled-water coolers came later. Around the mid-1980s, Nava said, the company began to look at bottled coolers and launched the Rio, a classic square cooler. The Avant and Connect models followed; he said the Avant grew out of a wish for “something a little more inspired,” with a rounded body made of several pieces that could each be replaced, and a built-in cup dispenser. In 2003, he said, Cosmetal launched the Jet, a point-of-use machine offering hot, cold, ambient and sparkling water.

The same profile described the plant. A purpose-built facility had opened in early 2005, with walls painted in what the magazine called the company’s signature blue, and coolers assembled by hand on a production floor with views of the surrounding hills. The company then had two production sites and planned to move the older one next to the new building. Nava said its design teams used computer-aided design software to produce “fly-throughs” of possible new coolers, and that each model had to combine practicality with ergonomics.

Exports have long been central to the business. BeBeez, the Italian private-capital news site, reported in October 2016 that most of Cosmetal’s sales were made abroad, particularly in Europe, the United States and North Africa, and that it employed more than 70 people.

Water at work.

Water dispenser makers sell into rooms that most people pass through without noticing: the office kitchen, the staff room, the school corridor, the gym lobby and the hotel back-of-house. Their brands have to work for two audiences at once. One is the person who fills a glass or a bottle several times a day; the other is the facilities manager, architect or procurement team who chooses the equipment, signs a rental or service contract and answers for it afterwards.

The product types shape how these companies present themselves. A freestanding or countertop cooler fed from the mains is usually shown as a tidy appliance in a bright workspace, often next to a choice of still, sparkling, hot or chilled water. An under-sink system is a different kind of sell: the boiler, chiller and filter sit out of sight in the cabinet, so the visible part of the brand is a slim tap on the bench, and the photographs tend to concentrate on its finish and profile.

Bottle-filling stations and drinking fountains bring the category into schools, universities, gyms and public spaces, where the language turns to refills, durability and easy cleaning. Here the brand appears on a sturdy wall unit rather than a kitchen fitting, and the messaging is aimed as much at the people who maintain it as at the people who use it.

Much of the selling still happens in person, at facility-management, building and hospitality trade fairs, in showrooms and through dealer and distributor networks. Many of the names in this field have also changed hands through mergers and acquisitions, so a brand’s history often runs through several owners, and its identity has to stay recognisable across catalogues, service vans and installer manuals in many countries.

Part of the Celli Group since 2016.

Cosmetal changed hands in October 2016. BeBeez reported on 19 October that the Celli Group, a maker of beverage-dispensing equipment based near Rimini, had acquired the whole of the Marche company, which it described as a leader in drinking-water dispensers in Italy and Europe. Unquote reported two days later that Celli, then backed by the Italian buyout firm Consilium, already worked in drinking water through its sister company Alma, and that the purchase was part of a strategy of consolidating the market. Celli says Cosmetal joined the group in 2016.

Celli itself changed owner soon after. BeBeez reported in May 2020 that the French investment firm Ardian had taken control of Celli in February 2019, buying from Consilium and the Celli family, and described the group, based at San Giovanni in Marignano, as a maker of dispensing systems for beer and soft-drink producers that was also active in water dispensers. Today Celli presents Cosmetal as one of its brands, alongside names such as Cab, the slush-machine maker from Pozzuoli.

Celli says Cosmetal specialises in the design and production of “Made in Italy” water dispensers, both bottle-fed and mains-connected, for hospitality, offices, on-the-go and domestic use, and that it supplies large purchasing groups in Italy and abroad, including customised projects. The group presents the water range under the Celli name as well, and says it is diversified in function, technology and performance so that different customers can find a suitable model. Those are the group’s own descriptions.

For a design guide, Cosmetal shows how an industrial name can keep its metalworking origins in its wording long after its products changed. Compare Elkay, the Chicago sink maker named after its founders, and Ebac, a British maker of dehumidifiers and water coolers. For this guide we use a deep blue, a steel grey and a cool white with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Cosmetal’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.