DIHR Brand Guidelines: Commercial Dishwashers From Castelfranco Veneto Since 1985

A 1985 start in the province of Treviso.

DIHR is a maker of commercial dishwashers based in Castelfranco Veneto, a town in the province of Treviso in north-east Italy. The company and its owner, Ali Group, both give its founding year as 1985, and an article published by ceda, the British trade association for catering equipment distributors, announcing the brand’s return to the United Kingdom in 2024, gives the same date. The company describes itself as a manufacturer of glass, dish and warewashing machines for commercial kitchens, and its range now runs from compact undercounter glasswashers to large rack and flight-type conveyor machines.

Most of what is published about its scale comes from the company itself. DIHR says it sells in more than 120 countries, builds more than 20,000 machines a year and employs about 160 people. It says its plant in Castelfranco Veneto handles the whole manufacturing process, “from the stainless steel cutting and fabrication to final product assembly,” a description Ali Group repeats word for word on its own brand page. The ceda article described the range as “precision manufactured in its Italian factory.”

The way the company talks about itself is short and functional. Its slogan, shown on Ali Group’s brand page, is “We mean clean,” and the company writes its name in capitals, DIHR, across its own pages. Its website sorts the catalogue by machine type rather than by market, and lists its international certifications and trade-fair prizes beside its production figures.

Ali Group, since 2003 or 2004.

DIHR has belonged to Ali Group, the Italian foodservice-equipment group, for about two decades, though the two companies give different years. DIHR’s own company page says it has been part of Ali Group since 2003. Ali Group’s published history lists DIHR among its acquisitions of 2004, a year in which it also bought Metos of Finland and several Italian makers, including Friulinox and Kromo.

Within the group, DIHR is listed under washing and waste management, alongside other dishwasher brands. It is paired in particular with Kromo, another Italian brand bought in 2004: in May 2026 Ali Group announced that Stefano Frate, who had spent 25 years at the Ariston Group, would become general manager of both DIHR and Kromo from 11 May 2026, reporting to Group President Matteo Zironi. The announcement quoted Erik Nommsen, chief executive of Ali Group for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific, on the appointment.

Abroad, DIHR is sold through distributors. In Britain, ceda reported that the brand would return to the UK in 2024 under an exclusive distribution deal with Jestic Foodservice Solutions, launching with glasswashers, utensil washers and undercounter and hood dishwashers. The article named the Electron range as the flagship, with double-skinned walls, and listed single-skin GST and double-skinned DST models below it. It said every machine for that market would come with a drain pump as standard, which the article presented as suited to British kitchens, where floor drains are less common, and quoted Jestic’s UK manager for the brand on what he called the range’s “Italian design flair.”

Design and documentation.

Commercial dishwasher makers sell to professional kitchens rather than households. Their catalogues are sorted by how the ware moves: undercounter machines and glasswashers that sit beneath a bar or counter, hood-type or door-type machines that wash one rack at a time, rack conveyors for bigger runs of baskets, and flight-type machines that carry plates on a continuous belt. Hobart and Comenda both organise their ranges in this way on their websites.

The customer lists read like a map of institutional eating. Hobart names restaurants, hotels, hospitals, long-term care, schools and grocery retailers; Comenda adds pastry shops, ships, central kitchens and airline caterers, and says its flight-type machines are built for large canteens, hospitals and inflight catering. The baskets themselves come in standard sizes: Comenda quotes racks of 400 by 400 and 500 by 500 millimetres.

The trade meets at fairs rather than in shops. INTERNORGA, held every year in Hamburg, describes itself as a platform for hospitality and foodservice, with a hall area for kitchen technology and equipment, and plans its 100th edition for March 2027. In Milan, HostMilano is another fixed date; the American trade magazine Foodservice Equipment Reports keeps photo galleries from its 2023 and 2025 editions. Comenda’s own awards page lists an innovation prize from the Rest’Hotel fair in Caen.

Ownership in this sector often runs through large groups. Hobart is a brand of Illinois Tool Works’ food-equipment group; Comenda was the first company of Italy’s Ali Group, which has since gathered further warewashing names. This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand and marks what rests on the company’s own word.

Machine types, trade-fair prizes and a plain promise.

DIHR’s range covers undercounter and hood-type machines, rack and flight-type conveyors, and pot and granule washers, according to the company, which also offers connected controls and what it calls IoT solutions for monitoring equipment over its working life. Its named lines include the Optima connected glass and dishwashers and the RX Optima rack conveyor; in Britain, ceda reported, the Electron range was offered with a connected control platform for managing machines across several sites, able to diagnose faults remotely, change program settings and update the machines’ software. The company says genuine parts and accessories are part of the same offer, which it frames around the whole life cycle of a machine rather than the sale alone.

Several products have won prizes at trade fairs, as the company and its owner report them. In May 2013 Ali Group described the Twin Star, a machine that washes plates stacked upright without baskets, made in front-loading and pass-through versions, and said it had been named innovative product of the year in the Grande Cuisine category at Equip’Hotel 2012, the Paris hospitality show. Ali Group says the Hydropower, a vertical stock-and-wash machine, won a Smart Label as the most innovative product of the year at HOST 2021, the Milan hospitality fair; DIHR’s own page lists a 2023 Smart Label award at HOST for its QK flight-type conveyor.

The 2013 description of the Twin Star shows how the company explains a machine. Ali Group said the water was changed at the end of each phase of each cycle rather than only at the end, that a coloured light changed with each phase so staff could follow the cycle from across the kitchen, and that dishes could be left in the machine after drying as if on a shelf. A double-sided version had two entrances, one where waiting staff could load dirty dishes and one where the chef could take clean ones. The machine needed no steam hood or floor grid, Ali Group said, only a water connection and a power cable.

For a design guide, DIHR shows how a regional Italian manufacturer presents itself inside a large group: a short capitalised name, a three-word slogan and a catalogue organised by machine type. Compare Hoonved, another Italian dishwasher brand in Ali Group, and Comenda. For this guide we use a deep teal, a steel grey and a clean white with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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